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There’s been no shortage of sturm and drang over Gov. Michael J. Dunleavy’s proposal to radically overhaul the state budget with deep cuts to K-12 and university education, Medicaid and the state ferry system.
What there has been very little of from the defenders of the status quo are alternatives to achieve better outcomes and reform the state’s unsustainable spending habits.
After avoiding it for more than a decade thanks to triple-digit oil prices followed by spending down state savings and dipping into the Permanent Fund Earnings Reserve and dividend appropriations to cover the deficit since multi-billion dollar shortfalls hit four years ago when prices bottomed at $26 per barrel, the time of reckoning has finally arrived.