Rep. Mike Doogan in Juneau - Legislative Newsletter

I had the pleasure of talking with two fine women on Thursday, U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski and state Ombudsman Linda Lord-Jenkins. Both women have tough jobs and are doing them well.

Pretty much everybody in Alaska knows Murkowski. I met her when she was a state legislator and I was an ink-stained wretch. She was thoughtful and hard-working and, for the most part, non-partisan. Oh, she was – and still is – a Republican, but I always thought she was – and is – more interested in doing things the right way rather than the party way.

I know that, as a Democrat, I shouldn’t be saying nice things about her. But I calls ‘em as I sees ‘em.

Murkowski hasn’t had the easiest time of it in the Senate. She was appointed in 2002 by her dad, Frank, at that time the governor. That caused a lot of tongues to wag. Mine was one of them. Then, last year, she lost the Republican primary to Joe Miller.

Republicans. What can you do with them?

Fortunately, enough voters – and, it must be said, campaign contributors – came to their senses and Murkowski was able to send Miller back to the minors.

Murkowski was in town to give her annual address to us legies and answer some questions. She did a fine job. We don’t agree on everything – especially oil taxes – but I went away from this encounter, as I have previous ones, confident she is doing a good job and acting in the best interests of Alaskans as she sees them.

Lord-Jenkins is ending her second term as Ombudsman. She should get another, which would, by law, be her last. Listening to people complain all day, every day must be a tough job. (I know I couldn’t hack it. Not that anyone would hire me to. After I bust out of the Leg, you’ll most likely see me next in a blue smock saying, “Welcome to Wal-Mart”.) It’s good that, once in a while, one gets to blow off steam by opening a can of whipped fondant on a state agency.

One more thing. As if Lord-Jenkins’ life wasn’t hard enough, she is married to Paul Jenkins, television star (Alaska Edition) and internet bloviator. Her husband and I were once competitors in the newspaper game, me at the Anchorage Daily News and him at The Anchorage Times, during what was called the newspaper war. I won. He lost. I try not to let him forget that, but there’s a limit to how hard I can twist that knife, considering he’s always packing heat.

So because she is, like Murkowski, doing a good job and acting in the best interests of Alaskans, I hope Lord-Jenkins’ budget doesn’t get messed with and that, when the time comes, she gets her third stint in a difficult job.

Well, for you baseball fans filling out a score card at home, we’re about three innings into this session, and the House has passed eight bills and two resolutions. We moved three more bills out of House Finance Wednesday, so, things are really catching fire now. Among those bills was something to make it easier for land owners to subdivide their properties for development, something to ruin the days of conspiring arsonists, and something requiring government departments to produce plain English explanations of new regulations – just in case Alaskans actually want to understand the laws they’re trying to abide by.

We didn’t have enough time to get to a bill banning the sale of certain bath salts – apparently people are using them to get high, and getting sick in the process. As if I needed another reason not to drink the bathwater.

Meanwhile, the specters of oil tax reform, in-state gaslines, coastal zone management, and a little something called the budget are hovering overhead – like 6,000-pound anvils. You might remember that the House and Senate ended last session, and a special session, whipping spit wads at one another over the budget, largely because they’d grown weary from lobbing dirt clods over the governor’s oil tax giveaway plan. Somehow coastal zone management got caught in the crossfire and became an innocent victim in a drive-by chest thumping. They’re all back, so don’t count on this session ending with a round of hardy handshakes and a chorus of belly laughter either.

In the end, when you’re a single member in a caucus of twelve in the House, there’s not a lot you can do. If the weather clears up, maybe we can at least have a picnic.

I’d like to take a moment to thank Michael Bird, of the National Conference of State Legislatures, for giving one of the most eye-opening presentations on the federal budget I’ve heard in a while in the House Finance Committee this week.

Now, don’t all turn off your computers at once. You’ll want to hear this, especially if you enjoy collecting a PFD check every fall.

As you might know, a big part of the Alaska economy is driven by federal spending. Likewise, over one-fourth of our state budget is made up of federal simoleons. According to Mr. Bird, the federal government spends nearly $18,000 per man, woman and child in Alaska every year—by far the most per capita in the nation.

As you might also know, the federal government has been spending trillions of dollars (that’s with a “T,” kids) it doesn’t have for the better part of a decade.

Enter the current crop of statesmen and stateswomen serving in the United States Congress. After about a dozen rounds of tantrums and timeouts over how to curtail growth in the federal budget, Congress passed what’s called the Budget Control Act last fall. The Budget Control Act stated that, if a “super-committee” of elected officials failed to agree on $1.2 trillion in cuts over nine years, then the entire budget would be subject to automatic, across-the-board budget cuts.

Basically they decided: if I lose my toy and juicebox, then you lose your cookie and blankie. And no naptime for anyone.

The super-committee, of course, promptly deadlocked and failed. Barring the appointment of a Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious-committee, big budget cuts are coming our way.

Of course, some of the easiest cuts for federal budgeteers to make are cuts to funding given to state governments. Like, say, a state government that gets $18,000 a year for each of its residents.

Hold onto your wallets. Because when the federal money runs dry, I know of a little savings fund of $40 billion that the foxes in the henhouse will pick clean.