A brighter future for Alaska: Why I’m running for governor

I want a brighter future, not a state people have been leaving for a record four years in a row. We can do better than the loss of thousands of good-paying jobs, closed small businesses and less opportunity to succeed.

I’m running for governor because we deserve an Alaska we can believe in again.

Like many of you, I grew up with hurdles in my way. My father was killed by a robber who broke into his office when I was six. Twelve years in foster care taught me that everyone deserves a fair chance in life.

That means an economy with good paying jobs and good wages. It means good schools, real and equal opportunity, and treating seniors with dignity — things I always fought for as a legislator.

Gov. Mike Dunleavy has taken a wrecking ball to these things.

He’s violated almost every campaign promise he made. He campaigned on education, then tried to cut a staggering quarter-billion dollars from our public schools. Eliminating 2,500 teachers and educators, and leaving students behind, isn’t a plan. It’s neglect.

We can bring back 6,000 good-paying jobs by supporting the construction budget we had before this budget crisis. Alaska has $2 billion of neglected, shovel-ready projects on our state and university deferred maintenance lists. The governor has let buildings and infrastructure decay. He’s kept thousands of people out of work for three years.

He’s left this energy state energy-poor. We can save money for people in rural and urban communities with needed renewable and other cost-saving energy projects.

I enjoy fishing like many of you. Commercial, subsistence and sport fishing are bedrocks for our economy. Our common interest in protecting our fish binds us. We should find solutions for communities where king, chum and silver salmon runs have crashed.

I’ve supported our responsible oil development and mining jobs. But the toxic Pebble Mine threatens the greatest wild salmon runs in the world. Unlike Gov. Dunleavy, who’s stood with the foreign Pebble Mine owners, I’ll stand with you to prevent this toxic catastrophe.

Gov. Dunleavy temporarily backed off some of his radical agenda to survive a recall. But his push for devastating cuts to schools and seniors, and his decimation of a university system that’s also the biggest vocational education provider in the state, will all continue if he’s re-elected. So will his attempts to empty our $1 billion Power Cost Equalization Fund, which lowers staggering rural power rates. He tried emptying that fund in 2019 and again this year, until the courts stopped him.

I won’t pit rural and urban Alaskans against each other.

Then there’s the main job he promised to do, and never did. He’s ducked Alaska’s seven-year budget deficit, and spent away $16 billion in savings as a legislator since 2013, and now as governor.

He’s tried grabbing our savings, as well as our scholarship and power funds, because he has no plan.

The half-baked ones he has keep changing. In December, he said he wanted “$1.23 Billion” in taxes he wouldn’t identify (Dec. 10, 2020, Governor’s “Budget Overview”). In May, he shifted to a $3 billion raid on the Permanent Fund, the biggest raid in Permanent Fund history. Taking an extra $3 billion from the Permanent Fund means lower annual Fund earnings to pay for schools, construction, police and roads, as well as reduced Permanent Fund dividends.

You never received his promised “statutory PFD” because he never believed in it, and admits he doesn’t now. Promising the easy spending part, but not a way to pay for it, was just another false politician’s promise to get votes.

The “statutory PFD” he promised would be $3,860 this year. Now he says he wants a 40% smaller “non-statutory” PFD. We need a real PFD you can bank on with revenue to pay for it, not endless fights and false promises.

We can grow the Permanent Fund faster with options like letting people who don’t need the PFD know that if they decline it, their share will go to grow the Fund to help others.

Constant shell games can’t hide that we need fair revenue to solve the deficit. That requires ending unaffordable oil company subsidies Governor Dunleavy voted for in 2013, and that I voted against. His “oil tax credits” are corporate welfare we can’t afford. We should partner with our oil industry, but not be junior partners.

Alaska can’t afford four more years of this. I’ll work for you so we can build a brighter future, together.

Les Gara is a candidate for governor, a former Alaska state legislator and Assistant Attorney General. He’s lived in Alaska with his wife Kelly since 1988.

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