Perhaps this makes me a terrible person, but I sometimes half hope to see things like this go through. The people of Alaska asked for this, and it will be interesting to see if they like getting what they asked for. The main reason it's only "half-hope" rather than fully hoping is that the damage from this will still affect people who didn't vote in favor of it. Those kids at the university deserve a better education than they'll get presuming the cut is allowed to stand.
Alternately, if I'm wrong about the value of austerity, and these deep cuts do allow the economy of Alaska to grow, that would also be interesting to learn. Previous recent experiments in this approach, particularly Kansas', don't seem to encourage much hope. But I'd be a fool to believe that you can take budgetary changes and trailing economic results in isolation. The system is far more complicated than that.
Alternately, if I'm wrong about the value of austerity, and these deep cuts do allow the economy of Alaska to grow, that would also be interesting to learn. Previous recent experiments in this approach, particularly Kansas', don't seem to encourage much hope. But I'd be a fool to believe that you can take budgetary changes and trailing economic results in isolation. The system is far more complicated than that.