The Weekly Top 3
The Weekly Top 3
The Weekly Top 3 (7.7.2025)
Welcome to The Weekly Top 3 — our look at the top 3 things on our mind here at Alaskans for Sustainable Budgets — for the week of July 7, 2025.
This week, our top 3 issues are these: 1) we discuss whether Elon Musk is the new Ross Perot and what that might mean for national politics (2:09); 2) we explore how the One Big Beautiful A will affect the list of issues facing the Alaska legislature (13:13); and 3) we discuss Gov Dunleavy’s call for a special session and how, while it may be a tactical gain in some areas, it is yet another lost opportunity to resolve state fiscal policy (31:25).
The Weekly Top 3 is a regular weekly segment on The Michael Dukes Show. The Show broadcasts on Facebook and YouTubeLive as well as via streaming audio from the Show’s website weekdays from 6–8am. We join Michael weekly in the first hour of Tuesday’s show, from 6:25–7am, for a discussion between the two of us about our three issues.
Hi, this is Brad Kiefle, managing Director of Alaskans for Sustainable Budgets. Welcome to the weekly top three the top three things on our mind here at Alaskans for Sustainable Budgets for the week of July 7th 2025. The weekly top three is a regular segment on the Michael Duke Show. The show broadcasts on both Facebook Live and YouTube Live as well as via streaming audio from the show's website. Weekdays from 6 to 8 am.
Speaker 1:I join Michael weekly in the first hour of Tuesday's show from 6 10 to 7 am for a discussion between the two of us about our three issues. We post the podcast of our discussion following the show on the Alaskans for Sustainable Budgets Facebook, youtube, soundcloud, spotify and Substack pages. Also on the Alaskans for Sustainable Budgets website, as well as the projects page on national blog site mediumcom. You can find past episodes of the weekly top three also at the same locations. Keep in mind that, in addition to these podcasts during the week, you can also follow and participate in the discussion with us of these and other issues affecting Alaska's fiscal and economic condition by following us on the Alaskans for Sustainable Budgets Facebook page and through our posts on Twitter.
Speaker 1:This week, our top three issues are these First, we discuss whether Elon Musk is the new Ross Perot and what that might mean for national politics. Second, we explore how the One Big Beautiful Act will affect the list of issues facing the Alaska legislature. And third, we discuss Governor Dunleavy's call for a special session and how, while it might be a tactical gain in some areas, it is yet another lost opportunity to resolve state fiscal policy. And now let's join Michael.
Speaker 2:Well, let's, let's get ready to, let's get ready to jump in, jump on board here and get things ready to rock and roll. First things first. I thought this was a really interesting question because normally we don't dive too far into all the national stuff, but you start off on the deep end here and you ask the question is Elon Musk the new Ross Perot? Which is? That's an interesting question.
Speaker 1:Well, I've actually had discussions with people who don't know who Ross Perot are. I mean, I've talked to some younger people and asked that question or raised that issue and people go who's Ross Perot? So, to begin, ross Perot was a businessman, a very wealthy businessman, not unlike the Elon Musk of his day. Perot had started some IT companies and was very successful in those. And in 1992 or 1991 began a series of conversations on the Larry King show, which was then a very famous, a very popular talk show on TV, on TV and and Perot started outlining his concerns about where the national debt was and where the country was going and about the economics of the kind of the economic situation of the country. Over the course of those discussions with Larry King, perot sort of talked himself into running for president and announced halfway on the Larry King show that he was running for president, formed a new political party called the Reform Party and ran for president in 1992. And even though he didn't carry a state, he carried some counties. But even though he didn't carry a state, even though he got no electoral votes, he had a huge impact on national policy. During that campaign he ran some infomercials which I remember clearly from that time that were just sort of you know chart talks talking about the national debt and they were successful in terms of framing that issue the national debt and the direction of the country from a deficit standpoint. Successful in framing that issue as a as a as an important issue of the country from a deficit standpoint. Successful in framing that issue as an important issue of the 1992 campaign.
Speaker 1:Both then President George Bush, I and soon to become President Bill Clinton, the other candidates in 1992 had to address that issue that Perot created. And I can say with a certainty, because I knew a lot of people in the Clinton administration during that time I can say with a certainty that Perot's campaign in raising that issue and the positions that Clinton had to take in response to that issue in 1992 had a big impact on the Clinton administration, both the first term and the second term. And, if you will recall, clinton was the last president during which the nation had a balanced budget. Every president since then, from George Bush II on through to the present day, have run significant deficits. Clinton was the last one that actually balanced the budget and actually was reducing the national debt. There was a debate at the time about whether the Treasury was going to have to stop issuing Treasury notes or Treasury bills, which was going to be disruptive to the debt market, but that was a real issue at the time. So Perot had this huge influence a businessman coming out of the business side raising these issues, having a tremendous amount of money and putting that money behind his campaign. Raising these issues had a tremendous amount of impact on the national debt.
Speaker 1:For the last couple of years well, the last several years I've talked about the need for a new Ross Perot, because when you look at what's going on with the deficits and the debt in the nation, particularly with the new one big beautiful bill or one big beautiful act, particularly with the additional deficits and national debt that are being created by that, we need somebody to come in sort of off the sidelines, come in, get in the middle of the debate and start focusing on national debt. And when you look at what Musk has said, what Musk has done and his discussion of forming a new party Perot had the Reform Party. Musk is talking about forming the America Party when you look at what Musk has said and what he's done and the issues that he's raising, which are the national debt and the deficits and spending out of control. When you look at the issues that Musk is raising, he looks a lot like the new Ross Perot, with a lot of money backing him, being able to come in and make waves, make an issue out of this sort of thing. Now a couple of big differences. One Elon Musk is widely perceived as a jerk and Perot was a jerk, but he wasn't widely perceived that way At the time he came into the race. He was perceived as something new and fresh and off the sidelines. Musk, with his tenure in the Trump administration, is not going to be perceived as something new and fresh. It's going to be perceived as, you know, sort of somebody whose stakeout position is not wildly successful and now raising.
Speaker 1:Second, is Perot was able to personalize the issue by running for president himself. Musk can't do that because he's not a US-born citizen. Right Wasn't born in the US. So Musk can't personalize it in the same way Perot did. And frankly, and I think Perot gained a lot from being able to personalize it in the same way Perot did and frankly, and I think Perot gained a lot from being able to personalize it in that way he was able to say I want to be your president, and I'm going to do this. If I'm your president and he was able to run for president and run from that base.
Speaker 1:Musk isn't going to be able to do that.
Speaker 1:But I will say this we need a Ross Perot, and if Elon Musk is the because we need to change the direction of the deficits of the national debt badly, need to do that, and if Musk is what we get to do that, then fine it's.
Speaker 1:If Musk is as close to Perot as we can get somebody with a lot of money behind them, the ability to to articulate the message or the ability to push the message. If Musk is what we get, then that's fine, and and and hopefully he is successful in the same way as Perot. He's going to do it a different way. Perot personalized it. Musk is saying he's going to come into some key races to be able to create this third force that sits between the Democrats and the Republicans and can tilt one way or the other to make them successful, depending upon how they are reacting to the national debt and deficit issues. So it would be a different way than Perot did it, but Perot had a big impact coming off the sidelines and doing it, and and and Musk has the potential to be Perot like, if not, if not completely, the equivalent of what Perot did, perot like in his impact.
Speaker 2:One of the major concerns about Ross Perot and Brad was saying we need a new Perot. And is Musk the new Perot? You know the complaint is well, he got us Bill Clinton right. He split the conservative vote and that's always been the fear of Republicans who are like the party is not doing enough. We need a new party. You know, a third party, but a third party always seems to split out the conservatives. So what's your reaction to that?
Speaker 1:in that regard, Well, I guess a couple of things. The Republicans aren't doing so great, michael. If you look at the analysis of what the one big, better, beautiful bill does, it produces deficits that are double the size of the American Rescue Plan, double the size of the CARES Act, more than double the size of the impact on the deficit on the debt from the original Tax Cuts and Jobs Act Trump's Act in 2017. So the Republicans aren't doing too great and I don't think it's something to hope for for the Republicans to stay in control, because they're producing bigger deficits than the Democrats did. And the second thing is Clinton was a Democrat, yes, but affected by Perot, particularly affected by Perot.
Speaker 1:Clinton pursued very conservative, relatively conservative, fiscal policies. He cut back on food stamps. He cut back on TNAF, which is Temporary Assistance to Needy Families. He made deep cuts in the social network, got the budget back in balance. Now he had a lucky run at the end because of the dot-com bubble. Incomes went up and so income tax revenues went up and it helped balance the budget. But nonetheless, he had to bring down the spending side or stall the spending side, stall the increase in the spending side, in order to achieve that balanced budget. So, yeah, it'd be great if Republicans were up to the task and were able to do it, but they are demonstrating again that they're not and are running big deficits again.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, that's always my commentary is how great a job are they actually doing, and would it be better to have a third party? I mean, at this point I'm just looking at the debt and thinking, you know this, this, this can't last, this can't, this will not end well, is what I look at it and see in my mind for sure, all right, well, that's so. So I guess the final question is so is Elon Musk the new Perot, or do you see it as just kind of what do you? What do you? What do you see it as?
Speaker 1:He's. He's potentially Perot, like he's not the new Perot because he can't run for president, he can't personalize the issue in the same way that Perot did. So he's potentially Perot-like in the sense that he can move the needle, the national needle, by forcing the issue to become a very big issue nationally and forcing the parties to respond to it. Personally he won't be a Perot, but he can be Perot-like and you know, in the absence of anything else, Perot-like is better than no Perot at all.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, let's move over to what we have been kind of dancing around, which is, of course, the OBBB, the One Big Beautiful Bill, or one big bad bill, depending on which side of the aisle you're on, I guess. So what? What is Alaska's response? What should Alaska's response be to the BBB? What? What? You know as you look at this and see all the things, what? What's your thoughts on this?
Speaker 1:Well, I've been spending most of the time around the, the OBBA and around thinking about what is the, what should be the state level impact, what should be the legislature's response, what should be the governor's response, how are we going to deal with this at the, at the state level? And the two big? Well, there's several impacts. The two, the two that have had the most publicity, are the impact on Medicaid and the impact on SNAP, or what's formally called food stamps. The impact on Medicaid Murkowski tried to get an Alaska exception to it and failed, failed. And what they did, what the congress did generally, was create this big fund, 50 billion dollar fund for rural hospitals. Uh, in response to the medicaid cuts that are going to be made and that's sort of a backhanded way of doing it. I mean what? The medicaid cuts are still there. The medicaid cuts that are in the bill, that are affecting everybody else, are going to affect alaska the same. So we're going to have reductions in Medicaid.
Speaker 1:What the fund does is rural hospitals in particular, because of the demographics of their populations that they serve. Rural hospitals in particular are dependent on Medicaid, on being reimbursed by Medicaid for the services that they're providing their constituents. With the Medicaid cutbacks, their constituents won't have as much Medicaid when they walk into the hospital. They won't be able to slap down as much of the Medicaid card and have their bill paid by Medicaid. So hospitals are concerned that without that revenue source their economics are going to be strained. If not requiring that they fold the hospital bailout bill or the rural hospital bailout.
Speaker 1:Portion of this is to sort of backstop the hospitals and say okay, even though you're not going to be getting Medicaid from all of your constituents, there's going to be cutbacks in what they will pay you. We will give you money to backstop you and keep you whole. So it's sort of a backhanded way of doing it, because what will happen now is hospital constituents that don't have Medicaid will still walk into the hospital and the hospital will still serve them and the hospital will know they're going to get back in. They're going to get support at the back end from the hospital fund, but it's not going to be a one-for-one offset. So one of the impacts at the state level is going to be those Medicaid cutbacks and whether some in the legislature are going to push for state increase to Medicaid or state subsidies, separate state subsidies, to offset the Medicaid cuts. That's going to be one issue we're going to hear about.
Speaker 2:Which they said is somewhere in the neighborhood when they discussed this earlier in the year about $80 million a year, right? I mean, this is a pretty significant chunk of money, Right.
Speaker 1:The second one is SNAP. And SNAP, the legislature and the governor are actually going to have to do something. It's not going to be. Do you want to? It's going to be. They're going to have to do something. Snap the way.
Speaker 1:The problem that Alaska's in with SNAP is we are wildly non-compliant with the regulations of SNAP. We have people getting SNAP benefits that don't qualify. We have people that qualify for SNAP benefits that aren't getting them because of the way the state's been administering the SNAP program. And so the way that the Congress put in some of the SNAP reductions was for states that are noncompliant, there will be a reduction in the federal payments. I mean, basically, congress says if you aren't going to play the game right, then we aren't going to give you all this money, which makes sense and so, and so the state is is out of, is out of compliance, wildly out of compliance, and that would result in significant reductions. The protection that Murkowski got, or the special provision that Murkowski got, was like a two-year window within which the state can come into compliance and not suffer that penalty. If it doesn't come into compliance, it suffers the penalty. So there's going to be a lot of effort, a lot of discussion, you can already see it but a lot of focus on getting the state into compliance and, frankly, that's going to require money, because one of the reasons that the state's out of compliance is we have understaffed the department that's responsible for administering the program. The state administers SNAP and we've understaffed the program that's responsible for administering the program, and so that's going to be a focus, you know, getting putting the resources back into that department to get that department back up and running again to meet the allegations.
Speaker 1:The other claim that some make out of OBBA is well, the state's going to be rolling in money because we're going to have all this additional development up at NPRA, we're going to have all this additional development of ANWR oil development, and so the state's going to get all the benefits out of that, and so we're going to have a lot of money. Don't worry about it. The answer to that is no. Npra has a provision. I mean the NPRA.
Speaker 1:There's two aspects of what the Congress has done with NPRA. One is they've increased the number of leases that are going to be available and the Trump administration generally is reducing regulations on development, so that the claim is that's going to result in additional development up at NPRA claim is that's going to result in additional development up at MPRA and with that they also the Congress also increased the share of MPRA revenues royalty revenues that go to the state. Problem with that is that MPRA contains a provision the MPRA Act contains a provision that the royalty share that goes to the state from NPRA be used in the local communities, be directed to the local communities. So even though the royalty share is going to increase from NPRA, it's going to go to the benefit of the North Slope Borough and other local communities up on the slope.
Speaker 2:It's sort of it will pass through the state's fingers but there won't be a lot of it doesn't go straight into the general coffers, it goes right back and round trips right back up to where it came from.
Speaker 1:Right. Anwr is different. Anwr doesn't have that provision. So if there are lease revenues in ANWR, then they would go to the state. But, as we've previously talked on the show, we're unlikely to see a lot of development in ANWR until it's clear what's going to happen in four years or three years from now. Oil companies aren't going to put a lot of money into ANWR until they see that they're going to be able to develop ANWR. They're going to be able to see that four years from now or three years from now there's going to be a continuation of the Trump approach. They'll be concerned that we're going to have a snapback to the Biden approach and all of a sudden, all that money they will have invested in poor development of ANWR will be wasted, and so they're going to be very, very skeptical about investing a lot of money in ANWR. So even though the ANWR provisions, even though ANWR lease revenues would come back to the state, would flow back to the state, there's not going to be a lot of those. I don't think that are going to be developed.
Speaker 1:The final issue about that also is even on the MPRA side. On the MPRA side we would still get production tax. But the way our production tax system works. You know, that shows up in the 2050s or 2060s or something, because we defer a bunch of revenue from developments, from new developments, and so that revenue wouldn't come through on production tax until way down the road if it's not offset them. So there's not those who think, oh, we're going to be rolling in money because we're going to have a whole lot of money from a whole lot of additional money from this development that that that the one big bill promotes on the slope. It's that's not going to happen. So so so the big issues the state's going to have to confront is Medicaid. What are we going to do about the reduced Medicaid payments that are going to come through SNAP? What are we going to do about the potential of a big penalty hitting in two years?
Speaker 2:Well, it's going to be interesting to watch. And, of course, on top of this, all $38 trillion dollars in deficit at the national level on top of that, not to mention what the state has to deal with in and of itself and um and and that to me is the is the challenge on this whole thing, like where you know we get, we get all this stuff and yet the, the, the cost of it is still going. We're still staggering under the cost. I guess is what I'm saying, and I'm just a little concerned about the fact that nobody seems.
Speaker 2:You know, and if you talk, if you even raise the question about it, I've been seeing people on X and other places get dogpiled by asking the question about what about the cost of it? And then they're immediately dogpiled about well, about what about the cost of it? And then they're immediately dogpiled about well, why do you? Why do you love Kamala? Why do you love, you know, why do you hate Trump? I mean, it's just, like you know, I'm just asking a question about the cost of the bill, not about, and it's just, it's kind of demoralizing to watch this. You know, this litmus test.
Speaker 1:Yeah, see, I mean go back to 1992 again. The complaint was Ross Perot led to Bill Clinton. Well, I mean, we weren't going down the right track with George Bush first and we hadn't been going down the right track with Reagan's second term in terms of impact on debt, in terms of what was going on with national debt. So, yeah, I mean you got to focus on the cost, and if that means the Republicans can't get their act together, then you know, maybe we need, we need a different system, maybe we need the, the third party that Musk talks about, that would have the balance of be able to tip the balance of power one way or another and use that to to reduce cost and reduce, reduce deficits and ultimately reduce, reduce the national debt.
Speaker 1:But yeah, I mean the one big bill is going to be a challenge for Alaska. Yes, it does open up new areas by expanding the leases, which is what the one big bill does. By expanding the leases, it opens up the potential for new development, but it's not anywhere near a certainty that that new development A is either going to occur, particularly over in ANWR, in the near future and B, if it does, it's going to result in additional revenues to the state anytime in the near future. So we've got the cost pressure that's going to hit us from Medicaid and from SNAP and we've got we've got the sort of murky revenue potential that's. That's way down the road, if it's any place.
Speaker 1:And to your point about the national debt, I mean somebody's going to have to come in and decrease federal spending, and Alaska is highly dependent on federal spending. In addition to Medicaid, on top of Medicaid and on top of SNAP, alaska is highly dependent on federal spending In addition to Medicaid, on top of Medicaid and on top of SNAP. Alaska is highly dependent on federal spending. So as these deficits pile up and as somebody finally comes in and gets them under control by reducing federal spending, that's going to boomerang back on Alaska as well. Not an immediate issue, but one that's lurking out there, a big one that's lurking out there down the road.
Speaker 2:Again, because somebody has to do it, brad. I mean, that's the thing I mean. Arithmetic says you can't keep spending what you don't have in ad finitum right, indefinitely. You can't. You just you know, we can't keep doing what we're doing and expect that it's going to work out. Essentially is what I'm saying.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 2:Another way of saying that, with friends like these, who needs enemies? Right, yeah, exactly, exactly, selling our children down the road? Uh, to make it work, spread the blame, brad says kim, there's plenty of blame to go around. I mean, this is a republican and a democratic problem. There is no two ways about this. This is there is plenty of blame. This is not a, in fact, this is not just solely a Democrat or a Republican problem. This is just a politician problem. That's what we have right now is essentially a politician problem.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the I wrote a. I wrote a piece the other day, a short piece that essentially. I wrote a piece the other day, a short piece that essentially said you know, both parties are to blame, that they're both going down this road of spending without having revenues to offset it or spending at levels above revenues, however you want to put it. And you know it doesn't really make a difference. It doesn't make a difference between whether you got Democrats or you got Republicans because, again, the deficits that are being created by the, by the one big beautiful bill, are bigger than the deficits created during the Biden administration. So you know, with friends like these, who needs who needs, who needs enemies. And yeah, okay, I'll spread the blame on both sides. That's why Musk is intriguing, like Perot was intriguing in 92. It's intriguing because what Musk essentially says is he's going to target a few races. At least, what he says now is he's going to target a few races, a few congressional races, house races and Senate races to try to get a middle group so that neither the Republicans nor the Democrats are in control, and then use that middle group to negotiate for the majority by extracting concessions out of the majority party, out of whoever wants to be in the majority, concessions in terms of spending levels or offsetting revenues to reduce the deficit, and that I mean, that was sort of it's not what Perot really had in mind.
Speaker 1:Perot had in mind him becoming president and then running the thing in a way that reduced spending levels and closed the deficit, but it's sort of the same effect and that's non-party aligned. It essentially says that both parties are at fault. We're going to get in the middle, we're going to control who gets in the majority and we're going to negotiate these spending cuts as a result of it. The Freedom Caucus, the House Freedom Caucus, says they've tried to do that, chip Roy and others say they've tried to do that, but they fold like a cheap suit when push comes to shove. So presumably Musk's party, the American party, would be less likely to fold and more likely to extract real concessions in the Congress.
Speaker 2:Well, you could only hope. Because again, the thing is, brad, I've said this, I think I said this yesterday. You know, we're running out of road to kick the can down. That's the problem, is it? Eventually, I mean, they'll just there, won't be any more, you're going to have to face the music. And when that happens, I mean, you know, we saw the Weimar Republic, we saw what happened to some of these things, and on top of that, the fact that we're the world reserve currency, um, you know it could get. You know, if we, we may lose, we may, we may create, we've created our own monster here. We just can't seem to acknowledge that.
Speaker 1:That's the problem. Not only are we running out of road, we're speeding up, we're speeding the car up the deficits one more time. The deficits coming out of the OBBA are bigger than the deficits during the Biden administration. Bigger we're speeding, bigger we're speeding the car up. We're speeding the car toward the cliff. The only difference between the Democrats and Republicans right now is who they're spending the deficit on. The Democrats want to spend it one way, on social programs. The Republicans are spending it another way in terms of tax cuts for the wealthy, but it doesn't make any difference. They're both spending it another way in terms of tax cuts for the wealthy, but it doesn't make any difference. They're both spending it. And Trump, the OBBA speeds the car up. So we're running out of road, yes, but we're speeding the car down the road, down the remaining road, as we go.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, like I said, what if I told you that the left wing and the right wing were both part of the same bird, right? I mean, that's kind of where we're at right now. We have a politician problem. Nobody wants to be the bad guy to tell them that the gravy train is over and that we can't be all things to all people, and nobody wants to be that. And you know, musk is an ass sometimes. There's no doubt about it to be that. And you know Musk is an ass sometimes, there's no doubt about it. The guy you know and and he's kind of a conundrum because he was, you know, his company has had a bunch of subsidies and done all these things, but he's also hugely innovative and he also is hugely successful in many, many ways, and so when you start hearing him talk about some of these things, it makes people listen. So maybe that is the good thing. But I mean, I thought it was cool when he said the other day you know, this thing is full of pork and everything. And Trump said, well, maybe we should cut your subsidies. And he said cut it all. I mean that, you know, I would love to, I would love to see that, but again, and then his stock tank, and then his stock tank. But I mean, you know he's the richest guy in the world, so he's like I'm OK. I mean, what are you going to do? You know, sometimes you got to take a stand. Welcome back to the program.
Speaker 2:The weekly top three continues. We just finished talking about, you know, elon Musk, and now the response to the OBB, and now we have this new maneuver by the governor to. This new maneuver by the governor to. I mean, I'm starting to wonder if he got some new advisors somewhere in there or whatever, because all of a sudden he's doing some interesting stuff. The governor has called a special session for August the 2nd and he's delineated that that special session should cover education, reform and the development or the building of the Department of Agriculture. And so, brad, this was kind of a surprise, because everybody's like nobody's going to do this. Forrest Gump is, I'm sorry, forrest Dunbar, sorry, forrest, forrest Dunbar is going to be overseas, and this person's out, and that person's out. Nobody wants to do the special session. And the governor's like nope, we're going to do it. So give me your thoughts on this.
Speaker 1:Well, tactically it's brilliant.
Speaker 1:I mean, I had not even thought of the idea of calling a special session to force the vote on the veto overrides.
Speaker 1:I mean, basically what the Constitution provides is that, following a veto, a veto after the end of a session, that the legislature, if it's going to vote on veto overrides I guess it must vote on veto overrides the way some people read the Constitution that it must vote within five days of the next session, be it a regular session or a special session, particularly of his appropriations cut for education, forcing the votes on the veto override in this special session.
Speaker 1:And also there's some other bills, including the audit bill for the oil and gas taxes that the legislature passed and the governor vetoed. There's some also other veto bills out there that would be subject to the same rule that you vote within the first five days of the special session, governor. The reason it's tactically brilliant is because you've got legislators spread all over hell and back for the summer. You've got Forrest Dunbar in Poland on National Guard duty and you've got legislators who were scheduled to go to the National Conference of State Legislatures annual meeting in Boston. I think it is that same weekend head out, that same weekend as the governor's called the special session for. So the governor has. I mean, tactically it's brilliant because it reduces the chances that you still with me, brad?
Speaker 2:are we here? Yeah, we're here. You, all of a sudden, you were like you froze for a second, like they were, so you were saying sorry all right so.
Speaker 1:So it's tactically brilliant in the sense that the governor's forcing this early vote on the veto overrides does it really do anything? I mean, we'll recall back in 2019 that the legislature passed appropriations. The governor vetoed a bunch of those appropriations. The legislature then came back in the next session and passed a supplemental bill that were those same appropriations and in the meantime the governor had gotten squeezed by the recall effort and when the legislature passed the supplemental appropriations that essentially reappropriated the stuff the governor had vetoed, the governor didn't veto it a second time. So you know what would happen.
Speaker 1:What the equivalent here is. The governor's vetoed education, called the special session. Because of the tactics around the special session limitations around the special session the legislature doesn't override his his cut of the appropriations, but then when they come back in next, next spring or next early next year, they pass a supplemental that includes the same appropriations, puts it back to the governor. They pass a supplemental that includes the same appropriations, puts it back to the governor, and if the governor vetoes it a second time, then they're all sitting there, everybody's sitting there, ready to veto. So it's a tactic, sort of maybe a delaying tactic rather than a kill shot, but it's an interesting tactic.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, and I think really it does a couple of things. And first of all, I think they were counting on the fact that he was going to veto it and then they'd be able to tackle that and make that a core issue at the very beginning of the session, going into this election year, and be able to tie these legislators to the governor's vote or the governor's veto early on. Now that they're doing, you know, he's going to try and force the issue another six months early. Well, people have got a short memory, so maybe by that time they'll have forgotten some of that. I think he wins either way. I think the governor, this is a win for the governor either way, whether he gets uh, whether he gets overridden, or whether he's able to hold off the override, I think it's a win for him either way.
Speaker 2:Um and uh, and and I, like you said, brilliant, I thought was tactically brilliant was a, was a, was a good piece. Now we see that he has also called on the minority members not to attend for the first five days. Um, and, which I thought was that was kind of bold, uh, but what do you? What do you say? What do you, what do you say to that?
Speaker 1:well, sort of cute. I mean he's trying and in a way he may be trying to give them cover, uh, for not voting for, for for the minority members being put in a in a position where they have to vote one way or the other on the veto override. Well, the governor didn't told me, told me not to show up, and you know all support the governor right. And so they don't get put in a position where they have to vote one way or another on the veto override. It's still, I mean, that's still maybe a short-term thing, because if he does veto, the veto's upheld. They come in at the beginning of the next session, they pass the supplementals, immediately pass the supplementals or very shortly pass the supplementals. Governor vetoes it again. Then those minority members are put in the same position and this is all before the next election cycle. So it may be a short-term gain, but to me it sort of looks like trying to give the minority members cover.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, I mean.
Speaker 1:to me it sort of looks like trying to give the minority members cover that they didn't make the decision not to show up. It was the governor who told me not to make the decision.
Speaker 2:Right? Well, because I mean, not showing up is a no vote, and the governor was just trying to obviously issue them a little bit of a little hedging of their bets there. What do you do you have a prediction for the, for the, for the special session? I mean, are they going to gavel in, gavel out? Are they going to, you know, are they going to attempt it? What?
Speaker 1:do you? What do you think is going to happen here? Well, stephen said. Gary Stevens, the president of the Senate, said he's going to gavel in and gavel out, gavel in, take the veto, override votes regardless of what comes from them, because his position is it's. There's both the two issues that the governor's nominated for the special session. One is education policy and the second is the division of agriculture, department of Agriculture. Both of those got dealt with in the last session and both of those the legislature said no on those issues. And Stephen said you know we haven't changed our mind. We're not. Why are we going to go back and revisit this? Why are we going to waste the time going back and revisit this? So, yeah, we'll come into session because the constitution says we have to. We'll hold the veto votes because the constitution says we have to, but there's nothing else to do because we've already been down these roads, we've already made the decisions we've made. There's no incentive. The governor hasn't created any additional reason to go down these roads again. So there's no reason to stick around. And if the Senate is going to do that, I doubt if Stevens would have said that without checking with his membership. So if the Senate is going to do that, there's no reason for the House to stick around because they can't act alone on any of this stuff. So I'm sure they follow suit, maybe a day after, maybe the same time, but they follow suit.
Speaker 1:The disappointing thing, I will say this the disappointing thing about this are the issues that Dunleavy called the special session on education policy and agriculture policy Already been decided. There's not going to be a change on those. At the same time, we have huge fiscal issues and the governor has said. The governor said at the end of last session that he wants to work on fiscal issues, that he's ready to work on fiscal issues. They said. The governor's spokesman has said they'll have a package ready to go at the beginning of the next session on fiscal issues. Well, if you're going to have a package ready to go at the beginning of the next regular session, you can have a package ready to go now.
Speaker 1:I mean, it's not like these fiscal issues are new, where is it? It's not like we haven't thought about it, yeah, and so the disappointing thing is that he didn't use I mean tactically, yes, tactically, this was all a tactic to get the feeder overrides up. But if you're going to do this. I mean, let's do it for some purpose, something that actually we need, which is fiscal policy.
Speaker 1:And I'm disappointed that if the governor was going to do this, unless it was just solely for the tactical reason, and maybe that's the explanation of it but if the governor was going to do this unless it was just solely for the tactical reason, and maybe that's the explanation of it but if the governor was going to do this, that he didn't call it on fiscal issues and didn't have a package ready to go on fiscal issues, because, I mean, we are never going to be able to do education policy until we get fiscal policy set. We're always going to debate whether we're spending too much, too less, too little on education policy until we understand who's paying and how much we have. And until we resolve that, we're not going to get education policy resolved.
Speaker 2:I guess my question is but what is the answer there, brad? Because we saw the fiscal policy working. Does the governor call his own policy? They wouldn't even. I mean, they had a uniform, unified front. They had all decided. All these separate people and different political philosophies had all agreed and then absolutely nothing happened. So I mean, do we just get more of that or do we actually get something that fixes it?
Speaker 1:I mean, yeah, so there's a, so there's a difference. I mean, what we had was the was the legislative working group, and they came up with a proposed fiscal policy, but the governor never said anything about it. The governor didn't try to implement it through bills of his own. He sort of let legislators you know, let let Ben Carpenter, in other words others wander out there and die on the road trying to fight for it as individual legislators. I think it would be different, significantly different, if the governor brought that same package as his package and said OK, you guys have talked about this, this is what, this is what you settled on. I thought about it.
Speaker 1:These are the bills to implement it. Here's a legislative session focused solely on that. Let's go, and I think, and he fights for it, and I think that's a different dog than where we ended up last time after the fiscal policy work.
Speaker 2:Well, we talked about how a strong governor could do that could drive the boat, could spearhead, could put the plan in place, could change how they factor the budget, could do all those things. And that's what we need. We need a strong governor to be able to do that. And well, so far we've been a little disappointed. We're just let's put it that way, I mean, you're right.
Speaker 2:And this is again where we've talked about this strength and this power of the Alaska executive, the administration. Right, I mean, it's a strong governor, and yet we haven't had a strong. We had, the position is strong, but we need somebody who's strong to be able to take that position and say, okay, I'm going to steer the bus and here's, here's my new, here's my new road, uh, and we thought he was going to do that early on, but of course, again he got. He got his hand slapped over the whole you know the cuts and the Don Ardwin bill and the recall and everything else. But he's just never really recovered from that and it seems like everything is just kind of go along to get along, although this last couple of weeks has been interesting to watch this posturing and I'm not sure exactly what to make of it.
Speaker 1:Well, it's, yeah, it's stuff he can do unilaterally, though, Michael. I mean a fiscal policy, determining a fiscal policy, would require legislative involvement, because you have to change the statutes. But you know this, this tactic of calling everybody back and forcing early votes on the, on the vetoes, is something he can do unilaterally and he's, you know he can do that, but he's not, he's not been able to be a leader in the sense of getting the troops together. Somebody the other day said well, Bill Walker, going back to Bill Walker, Bill Walker tried this all in package. He tried to put, you know, some spending cuts and some revenues, and, and, and that never worked. So why should Dunleavy try the thing that even Walker couldn't get across? And the difference to me is the fiscal policy working group. Walker never had a legislative outline of things that at least some legislators had signed off on as going together in a package, and Walker didn't have a legislative package that he could say. Look, the legislature said this I'm going to agree with it with these couple of changes, and here's your own package, legislature, here's your own package back in front of you. Now pass it and get behind it. Dunleavy has that.
Speaker 1:Dunleavy with the fiscal policy working group, although he's let time run on it, certainly. But Dunleavy has that. Dunleavy with the fiscal policy working group, although he's let time run on it certainly. But Dunleavy has with the fiscal policy working group. He has that package. He's got to fill in some of the details, but he can say legislature, you put together a working group, this is what you decided. That working group decided they were willing to do Some revenues, some cuts, some oil tax reform, some other things in there. This is some cuts to the PFD, coming down to 50-50, POMV, 50-50, PFD. This is what you decided. This is what you recommended.
Speaker 1:I endorse that, with these couple of changes or not. I endorse that. And here's your package back with my endorsement. Pass it and we can get this behind it. Dunleavy has that and he's had that for since what? 2021? Is that when the fiscal policy working group was? So he has that ability, he has that package he can endorse and I don't know what he's going to do. To be honest, I have some doubts that when we get to the regular session, he's going to have a fiscal policy package. I'm expecting it's going to be like Trump's tariffs right Two more weeks, two more weeks, two more weeks. But I mean, he has that and he could have come to this special session and said hey, I got a tactic and I'm going to screw you guys on the vetoes you did, but at the same time I'm also endorsing your fiscal policy working group package and we're going to go forward from there. Didn't do it.
Speaker 2:And I think it's a wasted opportunity for him not to have done it. You're saying that he could have called the special session knowing that they were going to do the veto override, but the whole purpose of the special session could be a financial plan based on the fiscal policy working group plan.
Speaker 1:Yep, yep, yep and actually make some progress. Because then you put the legislature in the position you know there were some liberal legislators who were on that fiscal policy working group Then you put the legislature in the position you know there were some liberal legislators who were on that fiscal policy working group Then you put the legislature in the position of saying, put up. You know you guys put this up, I'm endorsing it. Now are you willing to? Are you willing to live up to what you said in the fiscal policy working group and sort of sort of get the advantage back over on on on that side, and doing it in a special session keeps the focus on that, keeps the bright light right on that. I think it would have been a great maneuver, but it's not what he's doing.
Speaker 2:Well, there's nothing stopping him doing that. Coming into the next budget cycle though, right, I mean he could, and you're right, it would have been great to do it on the special session. But if he comes into the next budget cycle with the budget and then this fiscal policy working group plan and basically tied them all together and put legislation in you know, I mean he could still do that then Right, he's got one more bite at this apple, so to speak.
Speaker 1:He could, and I hope he does now that he's passing up the opportunity to do it on the special session. I hope he does at the beginning of the session, but the problem with doing it during the regular session is there's 15,000 other issues going on and there's a whole bunch.
Speaker 2:He can make it the focus of the special session he calls the special session. You can only talk about what he says you want to talk about.
Speaker 1:and he could do it Right, right, exactly, and that I mean he's had that tool since 2021 and I really hoped that he was going to use it. And when I saw the initial indicator on the special session, the initial headline was just said Dunleavy calls special session. Given what he said at the end of the last of the regular session, which was we need to focus on fiscal policy a little late, but we need to focus on fiscal policy I thought, all right, now we're going to finally put two and two together and we're going to get this done. And then you know well, I'm going to call it on things that the legislature has already rejected. But there's this neat tactic in here that I get to do along with it. I just it's a wasted opportunity that I get to do along with it. I just it's a wasted opportunity. Another wasted opportunity, I think, as we go down this road of the state falling deeper and deeper and deeper into this deficit cycle.
Speaker 2:All right, brad. Well, now you get to go enjoy another week of relaxation and enjoyment out there. Kate Bratton, thank you so much for coming on board. We look forward to seeing you back here. Appreciate you coming in today, thank you.
Speaker 1:Michael, as always, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2:All right, we'll see you next week.
Speaker 1:Well, that's a wrap for another week's edition of the weekly top three from Alaskans for Sustainable Budgets. Thank you again for joining us. Remember that you can find past episodes on our YouTube, soundcloud, spotify and Substack pages, and keep track of us during the week on Facebook and Twitter. This has been Brad Keithley, managing Director of Alaskans for Sustainable Budgets. We look forward to you joining us again next week on the Weekly Top Three. Thank you.
