May governor's cuts be kindest of all …

Frontiersman editorial board

Soon the knife will fall. Gov. Frank Murkowski is surely working out the details for the budget cuts that must be made on the heels of this year's legislative dodge-ball game. Our legislators did do some work this year, and some of it was important. But, they also successfully dodged the toughest issues facing Alaska. Our economy, like everyone else's, is facing tough times. Our budget is going to have to find more revenue or spend less if it's going to work at all. It could be argued that the legislature not only had an opportunity to tackle that challenge, but an obligation to tackle it.

Gov. Murkowski threw down the gauntlet. He made his proposals, and many of them were unpopular. He told the legislature that something was going to be done, and he gave the legislators the opportunity to devise alternate proposals. On the big issues they failed to do that. It could well be argued that many of those legislators have made up their minds that Murkowski is a one-term governor, doomed by the necessity of the tough decisions he'll now be forced to make. It could be argued that those legislators are content to abandon their own responsibilities and let all the blame rest with Murkowski. It will be easy when the next election cycle rolls around for legislators to say, "Look what the governor did. I didn't support that." We'll do well to remember that we don't send elect officials not to support things. We don't elect them for their prowess in the area of inaction.

The governor will not have the luxury of inaction. He'll attempt to make the budget work the way he's promised to do it. He'll cut. We can only hope that the cuts will be made for the correct reasons. Money, either its presence or absence, is never an end -- it's not a goal to be achieved. The money our government has is simply a means to realize our community's values and needs. And it's our money.

The governor has made it clear that his plan for recovery includes belt-tightening now and the expansion of revenues through resource development later. It's important to remember that the companies that will develop those resources must be attracted here by more than the simple presence of oil or minerals or timber. The state needs to be an attractive place for companies to expand into. It has to be an attractive place for those who will work here. If the cuts we make now leave Alaska with a weakened infrastructure, sub-standard schools and a diminished safety net, how will we attract the businesses and people here to develop our resources?

Alaska has to learn to live on a smaller allowance for a while. It's a painful truth we'd all do better to comprehend. The cuts we make should be designed to survive these tough times without jeopardizing our opportunity to take advantage of the recovery when it does arrive. Those cuts are not the long-term solution to Alaska's economic woes, however. It's never going to get cheaper to do anything -- not even run the government, so the long-term solution is to grow the economy, and the wrong cuts now will make that task all the more difficult.