{"id":5535,"date":"2016-11-12T20:44:18","date_gmt":"2016-11-13T04:44:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/walker-fires-back-after-d-business-grade\/"},"modified":"2016-11-12T20:44:18","modified_gmt":"2016-11-13T04:44:18","slug":"walker-fires-back-after-d-business-grade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/walker-fires-back-after-d-business-grade\/","title":{"rendered":"Walker fires back after ‘D’ business grade"},"content":{"rendered":"

ANCHORAGE<\/strong> \u2014 Gov. Bill Walker took umbrage with the conclusion drawn by Alaska business groups that his policies have almost failed the state\u2019s private sector.<\/p>\n

The governor wrote a six-page point-by-point rebuttal to the \u201cD\u201d grade he received on the Alaska Business Report Card put out jointly by the Alaska Chamber, the Alaska Support Industry Alliance, the Resource Development Council for Alaska and Prosperity Alaska.<\/p>\n

Specifically, Walker responded to a two-page letter from the business groups informing him that he had \u201cdemonstrated success on just one of eight reasonably attainable policy priorities\u201d and thus earned the poor mark.<\/p>\n

Chamber President and CEO Curtis Thayer said the groups\u2019 letter to the governor was a step that hadn\u2019t been taken before, but they felt it was important to explain their position. The governor\u2019s counter came as a surprise, he added.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn reading the points of the (governor\u2019s) letter and our concerns, I think what it really showed to me is we fundamentally have some disagreements that are going to take a lot more effort to resolve than I think we originally intended,\u201d Thayer said.<\/p>\n

The Alliance is a trade association of oil and gas and mining contracting companies. Prosperity Alaska is a business advocacy group. Thayer, RDC Executive Director Marleanna Hall and Support Industry Alliance Deputy Director Renee Limoge Reeve sit on Prosperity\u2019s board of directors.<\/p>\n

Walker\u2019s eight \u201cassignments\u201d included cutting government spending; establishing a framework to draw on part of the earnings of the Permanent Fund for government services; keeping the state\u2019s oil and gas tax system intact; advancing the original Alaska LNG Project concept; prioritizing long-term investments and generally promoting policies to grow the Alaska\u2019s private sector.<\/p>\n

The only topic the governor received positive marks for was proposing the Alaska Permanent Fund Protection Act, which would have set up an annual draw from the Permanent Fund and changed how Fund dividends are calculated.<\/p>\n

The Senate passed a modified version of the legislation \u2014 the centerpiece of the administration\u2019s plan to resolve the roughly $3.5 billion budget deficit by fiscal year 2019 \u2014 that was ultimately killed by the House Finance Committee.<\/p>\n

Walker wrote in his Sept. 30 response that \u201cit is difficult to take the grade or analysis seriously\u201d because of changing criteria and inaccuracies of fact.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf far greater concern to me is the message your analysis sends: that Alaska\u2019s business community is ignoring the reality and complexity of our state\u2019s current fiscal situation,\u201d Walker contended.<\/p>\n

While accounting for only one, but by far the largest, issue of the previous Legislature, House Republican Reps. Lynn Gattis, Lance Pruitt and Dan Saddler, who voted down the Permanent Fund bill in the House Finance Committee, all received \u201cA-\u201d grades.<\/p>\n

Republican Sen. Mike Dunleavy, who voted against the bill that passed the Senate, got an \u201cA\u201d on his Alaska Business Report Card.<\/p>\n

The report card was critical of the administration\u2019s 2017 budget proposal for $4.8 billion in unrestricted general fund, or UGF, spending, as the Alaska Chamber has long pushed for a $4.5 billion all-in UGF budget. It characterized the $4.8 billion bill as \u201cwell above a sustainable budget level\u201d that reduced the operating budget by \u201conly\u201d $140 million versus 2016.<\/p>\n

Walker noted his original budget was 21 percent lower than the budget in place when he took office and that the Report Card evaluation failed to recognize his vetoes that cut 2017 spending to $4.4 billion.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a new low not seen in ten years,\u201d the governor wrote. \u201cAnd it is below the $4.5 billion spending target the Alaska Chamber called for in its 2016 state priorities. Moreover, we achieved the target a year ahead of the Chamber\u2019s timeframe.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thayer, who was Administration Department commissioner under former Gov. Sean Parnell before joining the Alaska Chamber, said he understands the inherent political challenges that come with cutting government spending. He added that neither Parnell nor Walker likely get the credit they deserve for the work they\u2019ve done to reduce the state\u2019s budget.<\/p>\n

Thayer also said the groups were glad Walker vetoed spending after the Legislature shot down the new plan for the Permanent Fund, but added that vetoing $430 million in oil and gas tax credit payments damaged the state\u2019s credibility in the private sector for a second straight year.<\/p>\n

Walker has said repeatedly since the June vetoes that the 2017 credit payment veto was necessary to preserve state savings after the Legislature failed to enact a comprehensive fiscal plan and reiterated that in his letter, also noting the state made its required payment of $30 million.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t in good conscience use scant state funds to pay corporations hundreds of millions of dollars in excess of what is statutorily required when we are reducing education, public safety, and Alaskans\u2019 dividends,\u201d the governor retorted, adding that his fiscal plan cut the credit program but also originally called for paying off the entire expected obligation.<\/p>\n

On raising existing industry taxes and reestablishing a state income tax, other aspects of Walker\u2019s New Sustainable Alaska Plan, Thayer commented that the eight tax proposals laid out by the administration would have raised just $855 million per year but discourage the notion that spending would be cut further because of a fear that \u201cyou\u2019ll never reduce the size of government because you\u2019re feeding the size that it currently is.\u201d<\/p>\n

Walker responded to criticism of higher taxes by asserting that a stable state fiscal situation is much more beneficial to its business climate than the additional tax burden would be detrimental.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy aim was to keep taxes to a minimum and to spread the impact across all sectors in the interest of fairness,\u201d he wrote. \u201cIf your group had a credible proposal to balance the budget in a sustainable way without taxes \u2014 and without bringing (Permanent Fund) dividends to zero \u2014 I never heard or saw it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Looking ahead to the rapidly approaching legislative session that will resurrect many of the themes from this year\u2019s political marathon, Thayer said the Report Card coalition\u2019s message will remain consistent given the state\u2019s fiscal problems remain.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne thing we don\u2019t want to do, the Chamber in particular, we don\u2019t want to appear we\u2019re changing the goalposts,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Thayer noted that establishing a long-term fiscal plan and cutting state spending have long been goals of the Alaska Chamber.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Elwood Brehmer is a reporter for the Alaska Journal of Commerce and can be reached at elwood.brehmer@alaskajournal.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ANCHORAGE \u2014 Gov. Bill Walker took umbrage with the conclusion drawn by Alaska business<\/a> groups that his policies have almost failed the state\u2019s private sector. The governor wrote a six-page point-by-point rebuttal to the \u201cD\u201d grade he received on the Alaska Business Report Card put out jointly by the Alaska Chamber, the Alaska Support Industry […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":5536,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[230],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-5535","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5535","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\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5535"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5535\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5535"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=5535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}