Gov. Mike Dunleavy has made more promises about education than any politician in state history—most of them contradictory.
Read MoreGov. Mike Dunleavy continues to bungle state education funding, which could force immediate layoffs of school district employees across the state in June. The governor now says that districts won’t get state money after July 15 because of a procedural fight.
Read MoreThe latest in State Farm Insurance man Dick Randolph’s series of letters that he has nothing more to say about the Cole Brothers now compares us to his old friends Niccolo Machiavelli and Saul Alinsky.
Read MoreIn seeking to eliminate funding for vacant VPSO positions, Dunleavy employs the circular argument that the positions are vacant and there is no need to appropriate money for vacant positions. He ought to be talking about what it would take to fill those positions.
Read MoreA one-month Medicaid study to prove the value of a one-page “concept paper” from Gov. Mike Dunleavy will be heavy on boilerplate and light on the real challenges to improving health care in Alaska.
Read MoreIt was a political decision by the Dunleavy administration to accept higher levels of so-called PFAS pollution in drinking water, a move that generated internal opposition from scientists at the Department of Environmental Conservation and the Department of Health and Social Services.
Read MoreClark Penney, one of many deputy treasurers of the Dunleavy campaign to get a job or a contract out of the administration, is to help develop new business in Alaska, which is No. 1 in every governor’s book of recycled campaign promises.
Read MoreAttorney General Kevin Clarkson mischaracterizes the origin of the forward-funding plan, suggesting that a year ago the Legislature was making an attempt to reduce the veto power of the next governor.
Read MoreThe new promise is to not cut education spending at all in exchange for a legislative statement that Dunleavy deserves a procedural win. It’s hard to know which promise, if any, should be taken seriously.
Read MoreAccess to health care is vital. The confidence of knowing that help will be available when needed is in stark contrast to that of many thousands of Alaskans on Medicaid, who stand to lose benefits under the Dunleavy plan to cut more than $700 million, including about $465 million in federal funds.
Read MoreThe University of Alaska issued layoff notices to 48 human resources employees Monday, the first step in what UA President Jim Johnsen says will be a total makeover of its hiring offices statewide.
Read MoreUnder the Dunleavy/Koch ideology, the state that has had the lowest taxes in the nation for decades should have long ago been overrun with new businesses. But the lowest taxes in the nation aren’t enough to overcome the complex conditions that inhibit the growth of new business in Alaska.
Read MoreThe claim that slashing public services in Alaska and making it difficult to raise taxes on the oil industry and other industries will somehow build confidence among investors and lead to immense levels of new investment in Alaska is impossible to believe.
Read MoreThe proposed constitutional amendment by Gov. Mike Dunleavy would strip Alaskans of a right they have under the Alaska Constitution, which is the power to enact taxes through the initiative process.
Read MoreThere is a relationship between population growth and the history of spending. That the Dunleavy administration uses bafflegab to claim otherwise is one of numerous problems with its proposed spending limit.
Read MoreThere is a lot of babbling about a budget crisis in Alaska. We have a crisis, but it’s one created by a lack of leadership in the governor’s office, not by a lack of solutions.
Read MoreThis attempted sleight-of-hand, which candidate Dunleavy never mentioned, has almost been lost in the ballyhoo about his plans to deal with the so-called $1.6 billion deficit.
Read MoreThe Dunleavy education script, which he recites like the Pledge of Allegiance, doesn’t include anything about why average scores on the NAEP test are low. It doesn’t deal with the reasons that Alaska spends what it does on schools or the high rate of teacher turnover. It doesn’t mention the relationship between poverty and academic success.
Read MoreFormer Sen. Bill Stoltze, who worked for Gov. MIke Dunleavy for less than three weeks, resigned Dec. 21 as director of the Mat-Su office. One of the unanswered questions is whether the governor knew of this case when he hired Stoltze.
Read MoreFor some reason, the Buckeyes didn’t care for a column in which I said their conclusion that Alaska needed no taxes to solve its fiscal problem was something that Carnac the Magnificent could have divined in advance.
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