Statewide issues were discussed as KSRM’s coverage of Decision 2022 focused on the House District 7 race. The Wednesday evening radio forum focused on the race to fill a two-year term seat for the Alaska House District 7.
Justin Ruffridge spoke on issues impacting the State of Alaska and the Kenai Peninsula in advance of the General Election on Tuesday, November 8. Incumbent Ron Gillham, invited to attend the forum, was not in attendance.
The subjects discussed included the Ranked Choice Voting, mandatory vaccines, party politics, AK LNG, seniors, permanent fund dividend, and labor shortages.
Ruffridge also discussed his proposed solution to paying a PFD dividend and funding state services all within a balanced budget.
Justin Ruffridge:
“The old statute that has not been followed for the last six years is still a pretty good statue. I guess I’d have to take a hard look at what the budget looks like after doing some of this work that I’m talking about to repeal some of these budget items that we absolutely should not be paying for. I think there’s $200,000,00 to $250,000,00o in our budget that can be cut; specifically out of the Heath category if we make some very meaningful changes and follow in the steps of other states that have done so. It’s going to be difficult work and hard to get support for some of that in the legislature because it is difficult to understand. You’re going to need somebody that can speak that language. When we get down to it and we see those cuts, I think that at the end of the day we have the ability to pay a PFD based off of the current statute and also fund state services. Part of our problem is that we haven’t taken a hard look at some of these things; that we just pay because they are just hard to take a look at. They are very difficult, you have to have people that know inside and out these businesses serving in state office or state legislature or state bureaucracy in order to make those changes and we just haven’t had that voice yet.”
Click the player below to listen to the candidate election forum in case you didn’t have an opportunity to: