Speaking to the Alaska Legislature Wednesday night, Gov. Bill Walker referenced the words of the director of the Legislative Finance Division and called the state\u2019s current budget trouble the \u201cgravest fiscal crisis in state history.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMr. Teal was right\u201d when he used those words, Walker said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBetter days will come, but until then, we must make difficult adjustments,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Walker said the Legislature has already cut the state\u2019s budget to levels last reached in 2007. He used his address, the annual speech to the Legislature, to call for new revenue to close the deficit.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can\u2019t continue to cut the budget and expect to improve the situation,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Walker\u2019s draft budget, now in the hands of the Legislature, calls for spending some of the investment earnings of the Alaska Permanent Fund to reduce (but not entirely eliminate) the deficit.<\/p>\n
He said Wednesday that he will reintroduce a plan that passed the Senate (but failed in the House) as Senate Bill 128 last year.<\/p>\n
In 2016, Walker\u2019s \u201cpulling together\u201d State of the State speech referenced a picture given to him by Lt. Gov. Byron Mallott. The picture was of a group of Metlakatla residents in the 1900s pulling stumps. They all stood around a single rope, pulling the stumps with pure muscle power.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have been pulling together. And I know we can get through anything if we all pull together as Alaskans,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Walker asked the Legislature at that time to fill the deficit with a comprehensive fiscal plan he drafted. Despite an extended regular session and multiple special sessions, they did not.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday night, Walker urged lawmakers to propose alternatives if they don\u2019t like what he\u2019s offering.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you don\u2019t support the plan I have proposed, then put another plan on the table,\u201d he said. \u201cIf you believe we need to cut more, identify your cuts, and put them on the table. If you think the solution is a different kind of tax than I have proposed, put your tax proposal on the table.\u201d<\/p>\n
In his first State of the State address, delivered in 2015, Walker refused to call the state\u2019s fiscal situation a crisis.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome might call this a crisis. I call this a challenge and an opportunity,\u201d he said at the time.<\/p>\n
He returned to the topic again in 2016 and again refused to call it a crisis. This time was different.<\/p>\n
\u201cLast year I said it is only a crisis if we don\u2019t act,\u201d Walker said Wednesday night. \u201cWe didn\u2019t. Now we have a crisis on our hands.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are at that point (of crisis),\u201d agreed Rep. Sam Kito III, D-Juneau, following the speech.<\/p>\n
Kito said Alaska is in the same position it was when Walker last delivered a State of the State address \u2014 except the state now has $3 billion less in savings.<\/p>\n
\u201cI appreciate the governor\u2019s insistence upon a fiscal plan,\u201d said Rep. Justin Parish, D-Juneau, following the speech. \u201cI\u2019m glad that he\u2019s calling upon both bodies to present something, and I think that the people of Alaska deserve no less.\u201d<\/p>\n
Parish said Alaskans have already sacrificed \u2014 through roads going unplowed, highways unpatrolled by police, and fewer beds available at Alaska Pioneer homes.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople are sacrificing, and we need to act,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Sen. Dennis Egan, D-Juneau, was pessimistic following the speech.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m worried about my community,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The Alaska Senate\u2019s Republican-led majority is calling for $750 million in cuts to the state budget over the next three years.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of issues we have to discuss about public employees. A big percentage of my constituents are some way or another public employees, and it\u2019s up to me to protect them,\u201d Egan said.<\/p>\n
By the numbers<\/p>\n
Walker\u2019s 6,600-word address, delivered by teleprompter, was 400 words longer than his 2016 speech and more than 1,600 longer than his 2015 address.<\/p>\n
It took Walker 46 minutes to finish the oration, which was longer by word count than every presidential inauguration speech but one. It was near the average speaking length of presidential State of the Union speeches since 1966.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Speaking to the Alaska Legislature Wednesday night, Gov. Bill Walker referenced the words of the director of the Legislative Finance Division and called the state\u2019s current budget trouble the \u201cgravest fiscal crisis in state history.\u201d \u201cMr. Teal was right\u201d when he used those words, Walker said. \u201cBetter days will come, but until then, we must […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":426,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-32664","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32664","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/426"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32664"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32664\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32664"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=32664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}