For those who bemoan — and criticize — the fact that the state has drawn on savings to the sorry tune of almost $16 billion over the past six years, I have a fact to share: Yes, the recent budget deficit numbers are bigger, but the problem is nothing new. The state has drawn on its savings most of the past three decades.<\/p>\n
We just don’t pay our own way. We eat at the restaurant of public services, enjoy our pick from the menu, then walk out without paying, assuming our parents will cover the tab.<\/p>\n
For a state that prides itself on sustained yield of its fisheries resources and promotes our commitment to sustainable development, we haven’t been self-sustaining on a consistent budgetary basis since the late 1980s when North Slope oil production peaked at two million barrels a day.<\/p>\n
[Opinion: Taxes are the only way to boost Alaska’s economy]<\/a><\/ins><\/p>\n We have avoided the obvious, ignored the math, and pretended — or hoped — that the day of reckoning was only a biblical theory, not a mathematical certainty.<\/p>\n Though the budget numbers are bigger today, the deficit has been worse. The math was so bleak in fiscal 1999 that the state drew money out of the Constitutional Budget Reserve Fund to cover about 40 percent of the general fund budget. Then oil prices recovered and far too many candidates told us the crisis was a mirage.<\/p>\n Today’s budget isn’t the result of out-of-control spending on public schools, early childhood education, foster care, Medicaid, the state ferry system, Pioneer Homes for our seniors, Village Public Safety Officers or anything else threatened by the governor’s proposed budget cuts for the fiscal year starting July 1.<\/p>\n [Opinion: Stop oil and gas tax credits, money for wealthy and invest in Alaskans]<\/a><\/ins><\/p>\n Today’s budget dilemma is because too many of us refused to believe the math. Over the years, too many candidates saw political gain from telling voters that either oil or “right-sized government spending,” or both, would save us. And all the while promising to “defend the Permanent Fund Dividend.”<\/p>\n In an interview with Alaska public radio earlier this month, Gov. Mike Dunleavy said: “I believe that the sooner we get out of this fiscal mess, the better it will be for the economy.” Yes, many Alaskans have been saying that for the past quarter-century but, sadly, they were politically outnumbered.<\/p>\n “We just seem to be putting off the inevitable,” the governor added. On that point, he is right.<\/p>\n Our inevitable choices are clear.<\/p>\n