Today Rep. Sam Kito III and I called on those suing the Governor over Medicaid Expansion to save the state money, in a few ways.
First, as you know, I think spending $450,000 on a lawsuit instead of passing the pending Medicaid Expansion & Reform bill (which would result in $330 million in budget savings over just the first six years) is imprudent. It’s hiring lawyers to dig a deeper budget hole
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This week’s focus on climate change made me remember that, well, we have actually done some good work in this area. There is a lot more to do, and we can both save money while taking positive action. If we care about fish, a fishing economy, wildlife and game, and eroding shorelines, we need to care about climate change.
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Getting the Feds to pay for what the state used to pay for was once on Page One of the Alaska playbook. But yesterday some legislative leaders voted to spend $450,000 of your money on corporate law firms to sue Governor Walker on, well, a policy decision he made that saved the state money by leveraging those federal funds. To be exact, $145,000,000 in federal funds that would create 4,000 Alaska jobs, and ripple through our ailing economy.
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I’ve been periodically frustrated, and sometimes worse than that as the budget process plodded along too slowly. Passing a budget isn’t rocket science and many Democrats, Republicans and our one Independent legislator could likely have reached compromise in a few days, rather than taking 50 extra days of special session. But some legislators, though good people, were, I’d have to say, less “flexible” than others.
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Below, and linked here, is an Op-Ed I ran today in the Alaska Dispatch on the status of Special Session. I’m working hard, and will offer a few words beyond what could fit in that Op-Ed, which I wrote in part to set the record straight on a few statements I’d seen in the paper by legislators who likely wrote in the heat of the moment. That’s understandable.
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