FAIRBANKS: Alaska State’s mainstay income of oil taxes is down and unlikely to rebound soon, the state’s multibillion dollar savings accounts are on track to run out and cuts alone won’t balance the budget.Its cuts, taxes or a combination of the two, one of the state’s leading economists said the state must do something to address its fiscal crisis and it must do it soon.
In a presentation to the Greater Fairbanks Chamber of Commerce, Gunnar Knapp, the director of the University of Alaska Anchorage Institute of Social and Economic Research, outlined basics of the state’s fiscal situation and said inaction isn’t an option.
These options are not easy, but we can’t go on just talking about what we don’t want to do, he said. “A lot of people are saying, I don’t want this.’ We need to start talking about what we should do.
