Democratic former Stika lawmaker and Alaska gubernatorial candidate Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins pitched himself as a bipartisan-minded changemaker on Alaska Public Media’s “Talk of Alaska” on Tuesday.
“If you're not a fan of the last eight years under Governor (Mike) Dunleavy, I want to make a really strong case that I am the candidate you should consider supporting for governor,” Kreiss-Tomkins said.
Kreiss-Tomkins covered a range of issues on the program. He said he’d back a new pension plan for teachers and state workers, offered support for tax cuts to advance the Alaska LNG project, and said support for Alaska Native cultural programs should be a “matter of state policy.”
Kreiss-Tomkins has led consistently in polls of the race, outpacing a three-Republican field. Two recent surveys show him beating top-polling Republican Bernadette Wilson by six to 10 points after ranked choice tabulation.
If he’s elected, Kreiss-Tomkins said he’d work to boost public school funding and get school budget bills approved and signed “by March.”
The current system, where funding isn’t final until July or later, leads to chaos, he said.
“They fire a bunch of teachers because they don't know how much money they're going to get, and then rehire them two or three months later. And it's just, like, a lose, lose, lose,” Kreiss-Tomkins said. “It's so dumb, and we don't have to do it.”
Kreiss-Tomkins has described himself as the “pro-math” candidate when it comes to balancing a budget with a long-term structural deficit of around $2 billion. Republicans have pointed to his 2017 vote in support of a state income tax and recently rolled out a nickname playing on his initials: “Just Keep Taxing.”
Kreiss-Tomkins told the Anchorage Daily News in a story posted Friday that balancing the budget requires “more sober and less magical thinking.”
“Magical thinking, to me, means that you're gonna pay a $4,000 PFD. You're not gonna have any new taxes, and somehow the state will continue to function magically the way it already has,” he said. “It just doesn't work. It doesn't even not work. It doesn't even remotely come close to working.”
For now, Kreiss-Tomkins said he’s focused on two smaller revenue measures.
One would expand the corporate income taxes to cover the private oil and gas company Hilcorp. That’s a “matter of fairness,” since other oil companies organized as traditional C corporations, like ConocoPhillips, already pay the tax, he said. Hilcorp contends such a tax would increase energy prices, since it’s by far the largest producer of natural gas from Cook Inlet and would likely be a supplier for a future North Slope gas pipeline. The state Senate voted in favor a similar tax this year, but the closely divided House voted it down.
Another proposal Kreiss-Tomkins is leaning on would capture more corporate tax money from out-of-state businesses that sell to Alaskans. Lawmakers have approved similar measures twice the last two years, but Dunleavy vetoed both iterations.
Past estimates of similar proposals indicate they’d bring in up to $165 million per year combined, less than 10% of the long-term deficit.
In his last of several efforts to advance a long-term fiscal plan, Dunleavy proposed a statewide sales tax earlier this year as part of a larger package that would have also increased oil taxes and guaranteed large Permanent Fund dividends. The Department of Revenue estimated the package would bring in roughly $900 million per year. Lawmakers rejected the package out of hand before the war with Iran pushed up oil prices and obviated many budget concerns.
Kreiss-Tomkins distanced himself from broad-based taxes on Alaskans.
Kreiss-Tomkins said he was “bearish” and “skeptical” of proposals for a statewide sales tax. He said he was concerned a sales tax would be regressive, taxing low-income people more than those with higher incomes.
“I just don't want to support policy that puts more of the burden on working Alaskans and lower income Alaskans who — the challenges are enough already,” he said.
And asked about an income tax, he said he wanted to consult with the Legislature on the best way to balance the budget.
“I sort of want to see where the Legislature is and sort of approach the conversation from there,” he said.
In the short term, fiscal analysts are expecting a budget surplus approaching $1 billion as the war with Iran keeps oil prices high.
Kreiss-Tomkins said he’d like to use the windfall to make up for deferred spending on public schools and refill state savings accounts.
“I think the broader orientation I have is, I don't want to be making budget decisions that assume that $120 a barrel oil is going to continue indefinitely,” he said. “That is foolish in the short term, and I think it's ultimately fiscally irresponsible.”
He said that if he’s elected, a “metric of success” would be that the state’s Statutory Budget Reserve, one of its two general-purpose savings accounts, has a higher balance after his term than before.
Lawmakers deposited some $341 million in the previously empty account this year thanks to a war-driven surplus. The Constitutional Budget Reserve, the state’s other savings account, stands at roughly $3.8 billion. This year’s state budget was roughly $7.1 billion, excluding federal funds and other restricted items.
Kreiss-Tomkins was the second gubernatorial candidate to appear on Talk of Alaska in the runup to Election Day. Republican Treg Taylor was a guest on the program last month, and Republican Dave Bronson is slated to join Oct. 27. Republican Bernadette Wilson canceled a planned appearance Oct. 13 to attend President Trump’s rally in Wasilla.
