Burned by opposition to budget details, Dunleavy seeks refuge in marshmallow plan

In a 17-minute interview Tuesday, Juneau reporter Andrew Kitchenman tried to get Gov. Mike Dunleavy to explain his stand on the budget.

Kitchenman, a first-rate reporter at KTOO and Alaska Public Media, did his best to get Dunleavy to give details, but the governor went into an extended political rope-a-dope that led nowhere. I’m glad that KTOO posted the full interview on its website, allowing listeners to immerse themselves in the atmosphere of evasion.

The rules of engagement are such that when a politician tries to avoid offending anyone by couching every statement in weasel words, withholding details, it’s nearly impossible to get the specifics that really matter.

The lack of budget detail was a chronic feature of the press coverage when Dunleavy ran for governor in 2018, failing to reveal that the bedrock of his campaign was squishy and insubstantial, a marshmallow plan.

Dunleavy took a clear turn after the election, however, providing a wealth of budget specifics that left no room for political evasion. When that happened, everyone in Alaska knew where he stood.

Temporarily emboldened by Donna Arduin and Tuckerman Babcock, Dunleavy abandoned his best friend in politics—the habit of hiding behind generalities.

The Dunleavy plan to shut down the ferry system, dismantle the University of Alaska, cut schools by $330 million, strip hundreds of millions from local governments and take $700 million out of health care spending could not be repackaged to win the hearts and minds of Alaskans.

“We can’t continue to be all things for all people,” Dunleavy said when he announced his vetoes in June.

The rest of the summer belonged to the recall. But the lesson of 2019 was that details didn’t do well for Dunleavy.

As a result, 2020 Dunleavy is not a detail man. He is all things for all people.

He portrays himself as a bystander, waiting for Alaskans and the Legislature to decide what he should do next. “I’m all ears,” he said. But neither the Legislature nor the public will ever speak with a single voice on the complicated public policy choices on spending and taxes that must be faced immediately by the governor.

Listen to 2020 Dunleavy and you might think he doesn’t believe any of that stuff he said last year. It seems he has no opinions of his own, other than his opposition to the recall, and his undying support for the safest threesome in Alaska politics—resource development, the Permanent Fund Dividend and unidentified budget cuts.

Kitchenman asked Dunleavy about his priorities. The governor’s response was all things for all people.

“We hope to engage the Legislature and come together on a plan for a sustainable fiscal plan. We have to decide what are the services and programs that we value, what are the services and programs that we may not, try and reduce this budget further and then hopefully the Legislature can come together and we can get, we can get the issue of the PFD settled. My position has been clear and consistent. I’ll continue to advocate for that,” Dunleavy said.

“We’ll be going all over the state. We want to hear from Alaskans what are the services and programs they value. What is their position on resource development as well. And how do they want to pay for government going forward, if their desires, their programs and desires that they value, exceed our current revenue? How do they want to go about paying for those services and programs? So we want to hear from the people of Alaska,”

Does Dunleavy want to cut hundreds of millions from education and change that formula and others, as he talked about last year? He proposed cuts of $300 million to the school formula last year.

2020 Dunleavy sees things differently.

“So let me clarify, what I’ve said is the Legislature needs to review the formula programs to decide if this is what they want at the levels that they want. If so, then that means that those programs will continue to drive costs at a certain level. The Legislature just needs to be aware of that to take into account, potentially, an extra spend of $100 million a year or somewhere in that area. If they choose to change the formulas—that is something that they’ll be taking a look at and decide—but if they choose not to then they need to be prepared to add $100 million in some form of revenue to the budget going forward. Those are the discussions that we’re going to have,” he said.

It’s up to the Legislature and the people who show up at his meetings to make these choices, not the governor, claims the governor.

“If the majority of people say to us, the administration, ‘We don’t want any reductions’—for example the example you brought up, in education, ‘we don’t want any reductions and we are willing to pay for that with some form of revenue,’ I think we have to have a discussion with the Legislature,” he said.

So there you have it, the squishy and insubstantial marshmallow plan. It won’t work.

Your contributions help support independent analysis and political commentary by Alaska reporter and author Dermot Cole. Thank you for reading and for your support. Either click here to use PayPal or send checks to: Dermot Cole, Box 10673, Fairbanks, AK 99710-0673.