May 1, 2015 Voice Your Opinions! Letters to the editor make a difference. You can send a letter of up to 200 words (shorter letters are more likely to be accepted) to the Alaska Dispatch News by email (letters@alaskadispatch.com); or by fax or mail (call them at 257-4308). Send letters to the Anchorage Press via e-mail editor@anchoragepress.com or by mail to 540 E. Fifth Ave, Anchorage, 99501. Feel free to call us if you need factual information to help you write a letter. Contact the Governor. The Governor can be reached at 269-7450; or www.alaska.gov. Contact us. My office can be reached at: 733 W. 4th Ave, Anchorage, AK 99501; by phone: 269-0106; visit my website at http://gara.akdemocrats.org; or email: Rep.Les.Gara@akleg.gov

Dear Neighbors:

Last week this session should have been over.  Instead it continued past its 90-day deadline.  Then, during the 30-day Special Session the Governor called to finish the budget, pass Medicaid Expansion and Reform and pass legislation supporting children, the GOP asked for time off.  I have no problem supporting a Republican Governor who is doing the right thing, and it’s odd that the division here is between the Governor and legislative leaders in his own party.

I voted against the break from work.  We should work every day until the job is done.  And I voted against a budget that treated oil companies better than children and seniors.  Here’s the end of session speech I gave explaining why I supported a pared down budget, but could not support a backwards budget.

And Alaska can’t afford a new, shiny, glass Legislative Office Building in Anchorage that costs over $4 million a year when our last office cost $685,000 a year.  I voted to cancel that project and move into cheaper space.  The GOP unfortunately voted to keep it.

Backwards Budget: I Won’t Treat Oil Companies Better than Children and Seniors

I voted for budget amendments to protect schools, our growing number of abused and neglected children, and seniors.  And I supported cuts to unaffordable and non-priority projects.  We all understand the need to cut the budget in times of a $3+ billion deficit.  But we should not treat oil companies better than children and seniors, which is what would have happened if I voted for this budget.   I’m working for a bi-partisan budget that does better by Alaskans.

All legislators should level with the public.  Due to low oil prices and a leaky oil tax, the $3+billion budget deficit is so big Alaska could fire every state General Fund-paid employee – and still only cut half the deficit.  That’s according to the non-partisan Division of Legislative Finance.  Cuts alone won’t fix this budget, no matter how much you decimate schools and public safety.

That makes it more unfortunate that GOP-led majority blocked emergency bills Sen. Bill Wielechowski and I filed to close the most glaring loopholes in Alaska’s new oil tax law – so we could help fill the budget gap.  Current oil tax law gives oil companies $640 million more in tax credits over the next two years than Alaska gets back in Oil Production Taxes.  It’s not hyperbole to call that insane. 

When your house is on fire you don’t stand still, and when you have a growing budget deficit that can’t be fixed by massive cuts alone, you act.

We have to close the budget gap.  That means passing a scaled back budget, but protecting public education, a strong university, job training, and protecting seniors and abused and neglected children.  None of those things are luxuries.  Yet the Legislature funded other luxuries we can’t afford over schools and other priorities.

In the end I couldn’t support a budget that cuts over 100 more teachers and educators, cuts almost all state-funded pre-k, cuts senior benefits, but tells oil companies they get whatever they want. 

Children deserve an education that gives them real opportunity in life.  But Anchorage just announced the budget the GOP tried to pass will cause the cut of over 70 positions, and close pre-K classrooms and other student support.  Major school cuts will be repeated from Juneau to the Mat-Su and Fairbanks and beyond.

The Budget also proposed to cut the minor Senior Benefits payment that took the place of the Longevity Bonus for low-income seniors who struggle to pay rent and for food and clothing and medicine.

The ”Unspecial Session”, Medicaid Expansion and A Backwards Budget

Governor Walker was right to call us back to pass a smarter budget. I and other Democrats would not give permission to tap into the state’s savings accounts for a budget that hits kids and seniors and education so hard, fires over 100 teachers and educators, and avoids hundreds of millions of dollars in MUCH SMARTER savings.

The Governor has asked that we pass Medicaid Reform and Expansion as part of the budget, or as a stand-alone bill.  I, Democrats, and a handful of moderate Republicans so far support him in this effort.  This is an easy one and the opposition is curious.  When the Federal Government offers 90% funding for our roads, we accept it for the jobs and benefits we receive.  But here, when the Federal Government offers 90 – 100% funding for medical care, which saves the state money, reduces our budget deficit, and gets us 4,000 jobs and medical care for the ill, too many are illogically blocking the Governor instead of joining him.

And, getting people insurance will cut YOUR insurance costs, because hospitals would have to keep passing off the cost of unpaid emergency room care to you when it provides that care to people without insurance.  I have asked for these Medicaid Expansion and Reform savings because they are humane, and because they cut our deficit.

I want non-priority projects defunded to help fund schools, the university and better child abuse and neglect prevention policies.  We can’t live in a society that puts 27% of our foster youth in jail, 40% into homelessness, and leaves the state’s Children’s Services Division with caseworker loads 70% higher than they can handle.  That’s a recipe for letting youth languish and bounce between foster homes rather than placing them in one permanent loving home.

We can’t afford the $20 million sitting in the budget to fund the controversial Bragaw Road Extension.  We can’t afford to keep funding the $6 billion Susitna Dam, when a gasline the Governor and legislators are working on would serve the same exact people with excess power.  We can’t afford to keep paying oil companies more money in tax credits than we get back in Oil Production Taxes.  The $6 million sitting in that account should be put into child abuse and neglect prevention projects and schools.

That’s the skinny from Juneau now.  I could cave in and vote for a budget that I think harms Alaska, but I want to do better.

As always, call with any questions.  And write letters to the editor and Legislators if you want to express your views, and prod legislators towards better policy!

My Best,