Alaska needs a new political vocabulary to convey depth of the GOP Anti-Math Movement

The headlines after the Tuesday primary in Alaska all made mention of “conservative” candidates doing well against key Republicans in the House and Senate.

We need a new political vocabulary in Alaska.

Candidates promoting completely unworkable schemes and giant Permanent Fund dividends are hardly conservatives. Many of those who did well against incumbent Republicans promoted some version of the fiscal fantasy that Gov. Mike Dunleavy championed in 2018, founded on imaginary promises and platitudes.

The financial situation is much worse now than it was two years ago, however, as all state savings except the earnings reserve of the Permanent Fund have been exhausted.

The headlines would be more accurate to call the GOP candidates members of the Anti-Math Movement.

The candidates who pledge to spend billions on dividends, while opposing taxes and promising unspecified budget cuts are reckless and irresponsible, not conservative. The numbers don’t add up and they are refusing to take responsibility for the piffle they are peddling.

Case in point: Stephen Duplantis, who is leading Sen. Natasha von Imhof by 85 votes. His website says it is “Duplantis Time.”

His main point, it seems, is that he is angry about not getting enough in Permanent Fund dividends. He hasn’t figured out anything else. He is an unemployed pastor, who hasn’t bothered to master the budget.

In an interview with Alaska Public Media, the Anti-Math candidate couldn’t answer the most basic question for anyone who wants to be in the Alaska Senate.

“Duplantis said he couldn’t answer a question about whether the larger dividends would force sharp cuts to core state programs like public schools and the Medicaid health-care program for poor and disabled Alaskans — as the Legislature’s own budget analysts suggest. ‘I don’t know, because I’m not there,’ Duplantis said. ‘I don’t see the numbers.’"

Spending extra billions on dividends, as Duplantis proposes, will force the state to cut hundreds of millions from schools, Medicaid and other services, while eliminating thousands of jobs. His claim of ignorance should disqualify him from consideration. It certainly doesn’t justify his promotion of nonsense.

Another example of a man who should investigate the numbers is Roger Holland, who appears to have beaten Sen. Cathy Giessel. Giessel is a conservative. Holland is promoting a fiscal fantasy.

“Now is not the time to take PFD funds from Alaskans to allow continued irresponsible spending by the state government,” Holland says on his website.

A former state employee, he is against an increase in oil taxes or an income tax, opposes abortion, supports the Second Amendment and wants to cut the budget across the board. Cut it five percent a year, he says.

He doesn’t understand the scale of the problem, which is odd for a guy whose state job was in the Measurement Standards & Commercial Vehicle Compliance Metrology Laboratory in Anchorage, making sure weights and measures are accurate.

Holland’s ignorance of the budget is reflected in this statement: “Just this past December 2019, Governor Dunleavy provided a state government budget that was incredibly close to being balanced.”

“By reducing state spending by only 500 million dollars, we can have a balanced budget, and we can do that right now, without instituting an income tax,” Holland claims.

None of that is true.

The budget Dunleavy introduced last December had a $1.6 billion draw from savings. It will eliminate all state savings this fiscal year.

The budget that Dunleavy proposed in 2018, which Holland may have been referring to, did not come “incredibly close to being balanced.”

But if that’s what the Anti-Math movement calls for, Holland should say so.

He wants to return to the halycon days of Donna Arduin, former temporary budget director.

After his 2018 election, Dunleavy proposed cutting state and federal spending in the health department by $848 million, while taking $332 million from schools, gutting the University of Alaska, shutting down the Alaska Marine Highway System and confiscating hundreds of millions in oil and gas property taxes and fish taxes from local governments.

In the months that followed, Dunleavy did not listen to the public or the Legislature on any aspect of the budget, but repeatedly aired his grievances about schools, ferries, Medicaid, the university and his desire to avoid taxes and pay more in dividends.

He reversed himself almost entirely on the budget when the recall movement produced a statewide campaign unlike any in Alaska history.

Dunleavy’s supporters say the strong showing of Anti-Math candidates in the GOP is a win for the governor. If so, it’s temporary. It’s a loss for Alaska and the biggest threat to the survival of the Permanent Fund.

The Anti-Math movement can only deny budget realities for so long.

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