Please tell Politician Mike Dunleavy the campaign is over
Politician Mike Dunleavy is waging war against politicians, but he doesn’t seem to understand the campaign is over and he has a job to do as a politician.
He uses the word “politician” as a pejorative and pretends that he is not one. To correct that, let’s just call him Politician.
Politician is using state resources and governor’s office facilities to get people riled up about the Permanent Fund Dividend.
“If you don’t get involved, if you don’t call in, politicians are gonna think it’s OK to take your PFD and use it to pay for a bloated government,” Politician said in a government video, urging Alaskans to ignore everything but the dividend and testify to Senate State Affairs Thursday at 6 p.m.
This is a ham-handed effort to try to change the subject from the fiasco that is the Dunleavy budget, the biggest flop in many years, both in and out of the Legislature.
He wants people to forget all about his irresponsible plan to wipe out thousands of jobs, prolong the recession, destroy vital institutions and do lasting damage to Alaska.
“Some politicians oppose Governor Dunleavy's plan,” Politician’s state-funded email lobbying blast says. “Sadly, many politicians oppose returning the PFDs.”
Bloated government? Politician doesn’t understand that his plan to gut the University of Alaska, double class sizes in schools, eliminate the ferry system, close rural hospitals, increase health insurance rates, end cash payments to poor old people, raise rates in the Pioneers Home, and confiscate hundreds of millions in local property taxes is about the worst thing any politician has ever done in Alaska.
Politician won’t deal honestly with his budget or its impacts on Alaskans and didn’t bother to have anyone analyze the chaos.
But many Alaskans don’t see the world the way Politician does. They realize that there are many things done by state and local governments that they want to continue.
A reader sent me the statement emailed by the government. She said Politician should not be using public resources to get Alaskans to lobby the Legislature or run the “Restore the PFD” campaign out of the governor’s office. I agree. Politician should stop.