Post by Logan on Mar 16, 2016 16:04:06 GMT -6
JUNEAU — Members of the Republican-led Senate Finance Committee on Tuesday said they would rather spend down Alaska’s big savings accounts than “get into the taxing business” and adopt Gov. Bill Walker’s financial plan, which relies on taxes to close part of the state’s $3.8 billion budget deficit.
“There’s been some tendency on the part of the administration to start throwing around orders to the Legislature, and we just don’t respond to that,” said Sen. Pete Kelly, R-Fairbanks, who co-chairs the committee and leads its work on the state operating budget.
Kelly added: “I’m not getting into the tax business while I know government is still too big. How do I know? Because we cut a whole bunch of fat off of it and nothing happened.”
The operating budget passed by the Senate on Monday is 19 percent below spending levels from two years ago. But it still totals more than $4 billion, far above the $1.8 billion in unrestricted revenue that the state expects to collect — leaving a huge gap that Walker has proposed to close with a combination of new and increased taxes and earnings from restructuring the $52 billion Permanent Fund.
Read more: www.adn.com/article/20160315/alaska-senate-leaders-were-not-getting-tax-business
“There’s been some tendency on the part of the administration to start throwing around orders to the Legislature, and we just don’t respond to that,” said Sen. Pete Kelly, R-Fairbanks, who co-chairs the committee and leads its work on the state operating budget.
Kelly added: “I’m not getting into the tax business while I know government is still too big. How do I know? Because we cut a whole bunch of fat off of it and nothing happened.”
The operating budget passed by the Senate on Monday is 19 percent below spending levels from two years ago. But it still totals more than $4 billion, far above the $1.8 billion in unrestricted revenue that the state expects to collect — leaving a huge gap that Walker has proposed to close with a combination of new and increased taxes and earnings from restructuring the $52 billion Permanent Fund.
Read more: www.adn.com/article/20160315/alaska-senate-leaders-were-not-getting-tax-business