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BUDGET DISCIPLINE VITAL
Rep. Vic Kohring
Jan. 14, 2006
As the second session of the 24th Alaska Legislature begins here in
Juneau, it’s appropriate to examine why we are here and what we can
achieve for Alaskans. To merely state that the biggest issue facing us
is overspending is to state the obvious. Let’s ask why and how this
happens.
As legislators tend to their daily schedules, they are visited by
legions of individuals and special interest groups. The vast majority
of them want the Legislature to spend money on their particular
program. Imagine the politician, even if he or she comes to the
Legislature with a sincere limited government, spend less philosophy,
is literally met and confronted on a daily basis by people who make
loud and dramatic claims that if their needs are not met, it will be a
great catastrophe and the legislator will probably lose his or her
seat. The pressure is enormous. Few can resist.
So when I state with great certainty that we ought to use the large
monetary income from recent high oil prices to take care of debt
obligations and place the rest into our reserve accounts or the
Permanent Fund as opposed to funding even more government, many will
privately agree. But then the inevitable process of special
interests’ pressure begins to take its toll. This has gone on year
after year, to where we now we have the most inflated budget in our
state’s history.
We rank as the highest spending state in the entire country. New
Yorkers (represented by liberal Hillary Clinton) are taxed to an
incredibly high per capita spending level. Oh woe on them. But Alaska
outspends New York by three times!
We consume over $8 billion a year from our operating budget (mostly
social programs and the bureaucracy to run them) in a state with a mere
700,000 people. Alaska has the dubious distinction of having the most
exorbitant government of any state, spending more than entire countries
in the world.
It’s my 12th session in Juneau. I have watched this process
repeatedly an even dozen times. It’s time we acted rationally instead
of emotionally. We should spend what we have more carefully and
efficiently...on the limited government we ought to have...roads,
police, fire protection and schools. We should wean ourselves from the
soft, liberal, “feel good” programs that are not prescribed by our
constitution.
With this common sense plea, to run government with an eye on
constitutional restraint, and for courageously deleting the truly
extraneous fat (government TV and Radio, tourism advertising, fish
marketing, to name a few), we should move forward with developing
important infrastructure.
To overcome the dramatic pleas of special interests is a long-term
effort because each person’s program is practically of absolute life or
death importance. Legislators are inundated all session long with
this. I throw down the gauntlet to each of my colleagues. Can you
resist?
I have and will resist. Please join me. With this in mind Alaskans
would then be left in peace to spend more of their own money the way
they want, not government. It’s theirs after all. They earned it.
Rep. Vic Kohring serves Wasilla and the Mat-Su in the Alaska State
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