Alaska is set to be the next great reckoning for conservatives

[Eugene]

Source: Washington Post

Alaska is set to be the next great reckoning for conservatives

By Henry Olsen
Columnist
February 20 at 4:13 PM

Conservatives who want to shrink government are despairing over the debt-fueled Washington spend-fest. They tend to blame out-of-touch leadership for the failure to cut spending, but public opinion is likely the real culprit. Turn north and look at the ongoing budget fight in Alaska to see why.

Alaskans have long financed their state government without paying for it themselves. Alaska has no personal income tax and no statewide sales or property tax. Instead, the state uses taxes and royalties on oil and gas producers to fund the overwhelming share of its government. As a result, Alaskans have received their schools, public universities and social services at a fraction of what the rest of us pay in taxes.

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But last week, Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy (R) told his constituents that the gravy train is over. Oil prices and production have been down for many years, and there is little prospect of either increasing significantly. That means oil and gas tax revenue no longer supports what the state pays for its services. And rather than levy new taxes or cut the dividend, Dunleavy showed the leadership that many conservatives contend is lacking in Washington and proposed slashing state spending by nearly 25 percent.

Those cuts are real, not some phony accounting scheme against “projected” spending. The state’s K-12 schools would see their basic state aid cut more than 23 percent from last year’s appropriation. The state’s Medicaid program would get slashed by about a third. The state general fund subsidy for the University of Alaska would drop by more than 40 percent.

Some conservatives have long said that government spending could be significantly cut primarily by eliminating government waste. There surely is fat to be trimmed, as there is in any large entity. But the simple fact is that the bulk of government spending goes for services that benefit large numbers of people, and Alaska’s budget cuts would also damage thousands of people working for government who would either lose their jobs or see their pay cut.

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Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/alaska-is-set-to-be-the-next-great-reckoning-for-conservatives/2019/02/20/93d4bbc2-352b-11e9-854a-7a14d7fec96a_story.html

[3Hotdogs]

1. How does the average state income compare with other states?

Are they low income earners with little to tax?

[dixiegrrrrl]

2. I do know cost of living is sky high up there.

And the lack of state taxes has really helped the low earners esp.

Wiki sez....

Alaska has the seventh-highest per capita income in the United States, at $30,651 (2014).
Its personal per capita income is $33,568 (2003), the twelfth-highest in the country.

that's median income figures.

When the piggy bank gets turned down/off, a lot of people are gonna be hurting.