The Mudflats

It’s time for your weekly check-in from our nation’s capital with A View from the Hill with KTVA’s Matt Felling, or as I like to call it here, “Hey! I can see Washington D.C. from my house!”

Kudos to Matt Felling for putting this weekly segment together. Last week we heard from Lisa Murkowski, so now it’s Mark Begich’s turn.

Here he is on health care, OCS drilling, and Anchorage’s finances.

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Here are my notes.  And since it seems like the Sullivan administration and the right wing radio lunasphere has decided that their favorite blood sport is pounding Mark Begich like a pinata… you know… so you won’t actually look at THEM, I typed out a transcript of Matt Felling’s last question about the Anchorage city budget. 

Health care – Attributes recent momentum on the public option to the fact that more information is getting out there.  Sees a need to reeform the health care system as well as the insurance system.  We are getting closer now to actually having a bill that is presentable to the public.  The public option is a mechanism whereby we can hold insuance companies accountable on their rates.  Wants a bill to provide access to coverage, and that the insurance companies cannot deny you for a pre-existing condition.  Wants competition in the marketplace.  Wants to put choice in people’s hands while retaining a spirit of competition.

OCS drilling – there needs to be a balance.  Need to make sure that local communities are having input.  Agrees with the Department of the Interior that we should proceed and that it can be done safely.  Brought Sec. of Interior Ken Salazar up earlier this year to “Alaskanize” him and show him that we know how to do oil and gas safely.  Hopes that drilling in the Chukchi Sea is next.  Wants to make sure Alaska gets good revenue sharing.  He has a bill that addresses this and will make sure Alaska gets the same thing other states get.

Anchorage Finances – (transcript)

Felling:  There are still concerns about the city’s budget here in Anchorage.  Some statements have come out from the former chief financial officer Sharon Weddleton about how all the numbers were out there for the Assembly members when they were making the budget for the current fiscal year.  But at the same time, she laid out a spreadsheet for you, I’ve been led to believe that spelled it out and mapped out the financial situation of the city a little bit more clearly than  just the numbers on different forms.  Was that provided to you and was it shared with the rest of the assembly and what was the decision making process between that information.

Begich:  You know, it’s interesting Matt.  This issue keeps getting kicked around.  The facts are that the Assembly had plenty of information, multiple  work sessions…You know it’s interesting to note that when I was in the Assembly for 10 years, we had a budget analyst’s office, because  of the separation of powers between the legislative body –  the Assembly and the executive branch, the Mayor.   And we had a budget analyst’s office that had…, you know we took our numbers, we cranked them out we cranked sheets out to make sure we knew what was happening with the budget process.  The same Assembly members who are now complaining actually eliminated that office, eliminated that resource for them.  But the facts are, every bit of that information that I accumulated, they also had.  How they accumulate their information is the way they do their business .  They got rid of their budget analyst’s office which I think was a big mistake on their part.  I actually told them that but they decided to do that for a variety of reasons. The people who are complaining the most are the ones that did that.  You know the information I got was just like anyone else, you kind of make your notes on what the issues are over the next one to three years.  That’s what it was, and the Assembly had all that information, and now they claim, of course they didn’t, but that’s just not correct.

In short:

Health Care – Still tiptoeing around commitment to a public option, but admitted that its recent support is tied to people knowing more about it.

OCS Drilling – Thinks it can be done safely.  Has a bill out there that will ensure Alaska gets what others in the lower 48 get from federal dollars.

Anchorage Budget – Dan Sullivan and Dan Coffey and Bill Starr are a bunch of no good rotten whiners who seem to want to just stand around and complain and throw chairs and gloss over their own faults because its more fun to throw mud at someone else than attempt to solve problems.  And they should be tarred and feathered in the middle of Town Square Park, and left out there while the media start investigating what THEY’ve been up to for the last couple years  …  OK, that’s what I think.  He was much nicer.

Pepto Bismol rating on a scale of 1 (best) to 7 (ulcer time):

Tune in next week when we tiptoe to the other side of the aisle.