Wednesday, July 10, 2019

An Open Letter to President Lee Bollinger, Earth Institute Director Alex Halliday, and NCDP Director Irwin Redlener on Columbia's contract with the Border Patrol

American Society of Pediatrics
Dear President Bollinger, Dr. Halliday, and Dr. Redlener,

We, the undersigned members of the Columbia community, are disturbed to learn that the University has a contract with the Customs and Border Protection, the arm of the US Dept. of Homeland Security that is on the front line of this Administration’s policy of “zero tolerance” and detention of migrants and asylum seekers at the US-Mexico border.

The contract is with the Earth Institute’s National Center for Disaster Preparedness to develop for the CBP “a standardized, but basic health-screening tool to help determine whether a child might need urgent medical attention” and other medical protocols.

We beg to differ with the rationale for this contract, that “the federal agencies responsible for apprehending and assuming custody of people crossing the borders illegally are beyond overwhelmed” and that “much-maligned (often unfairly) Border Patrol agents, with essentially no medical training whatsoever, are doing a thankless job.” (ibid)

The crisis at the border and in CBP detention facilities is entirely of this administration’s making. It is the desired outcome of a deliberate policy to inflict bodily and psychic harm on asylum seekers, adults and children alike, under the guise of “deterrence.” CBP continues to separate children and infants from their parents. It confiscates migrants’ clothing, toothbrushes, and medicines when they are placed in detention. Migrants have inadequate access to water and food. The camps are kept at 55 degrees and lights are kept on 24 hours a day. Migrants must sleep on concrete floors; many cannot even do this, as the cells are so crowded as to be standing-room only. According to some observers, the horrific conditions in these facilities meet the legal definition of torture.

Some may argue that it is possible to do a small good in the context of a large evil. Perhaps contributing professional services to the CBP to alleviate suffering is an appropriate response to this crisis. We do not believe it is possible to provide such services under the aegis of CBP because the administration in general, and CBP in particular, has created this crisis in the first place. Well-intentioned actions clash with the agency’s mandate to implement an inhumane policy and its toxic culture. Worse, such actions may legitimate the CBP, which has no interest in attending to the medical needs of migrants. Legal advocates (including Columbia law professor Elora Mukherjee) have gone to court to gain access for independent doctors and a public health expert at the CBP facilities along the border. Notably, John Sandler, the acting director of the CBP, who reportedly reached out to Columbia to develop a screening tool, resigned on June 25 amidst outcry over conditions in detention camps. DHS's inspector general report (July 2) corroborate findings of independent monitors.

There are many ways for us to positively assist migrants in this crisis. Columbia faculty and students have provided independent translation, legal, and medical services at the border and elsewhere for migrants and asylum seekers. Columbia Law School's immigration clinic and Medical School's asylum clinic are two institutional venues that have responded to the current crisis. But we believe the University should have nothing to do with Customs and Border Patrol. Contracting with CBP is at odds with Columbia’s ethics, which led the University to divest from private prison and detention contractors. Regardless of good intentions, the CBP contract is a stain on our conscience and reputation as an institution that upholds human rights and ethical practices. We cannot work for concentration camps. We demand that Columbia cancel its contract with the CBP.

Sincerely,


  1

  Mae Ngai
Faculty History

  2

  Nara Milanich
Faculty History, Barnard

  3

  Shamus Khan
Faculty Chair, Sociology

  4

  Dhananjay Jagannathan
Faculty Department of Philosophy

  5

  Anupama Rao
Faculty History, Barnard College and
  MESAAS (CU)

  6

  Michael Harris
Faculty Mathematics

  7

  Karen Van Dyck
Faculty Classics Department

  8

  Susan Bernofsky
Faculty School of the Arts

  9

  Michael Thaddeus
Faculty Department of Mathematics

  10

  Nico Baumbach
Faculty Associate Professor, Film/School
  of Arts

  11

  Jane M Spinak
Faculty Columbia Law School

  12

  Anooradha Iyer Siddiqi
Faculty Barnard College Department of
  Architecture

  13

  Naor Ben-Yehoyada
Faculty Anthropology

  14

  Shelly Silver
Faculty Visual Arts, School of the Arts

  15

  
Faculty English and Comparative Literature

  16

  Natasha Lightfoot
Faculty History

  17

  Elsa Stamatopoulou
Faculty Institute for the Study of Human
  Rights

  18

  Francine Cournos, MD
Faculty Mailman School of Public Health

  19

  Marianne Hirsch
Faculty English and Comparative Literature

  20

  Gauri Viswanathan
Faculty English and Comparative Literature

  21

  Jessica Collins
Faculty Philosophy

  22

  J.C. Salyer
Faculty Department of Anthropology &
  Director of the Human Rights Program, Barnard

  23

  Herb Sloan
Faculty Professor Emeritus, Department of
  History, Barnard

  24

  Brent Hayes Edwards
Faculty Department of English and
  Comparative Literature

  25

  Todd Gitlin
Faculty Journalism and Sociology

  26

  Gil Anidjar
Faculty Religion / MESAAS

  27

  
Faculty Dept. of Germanic Languages, ICLS

  28

  Courtney Bender
Faculty Department of Religion

  29

  Katharina Pistor
Faculty Law School

  30

  Jack Halberstam
Faculty English and IRWGS

  32

  Joseph Slaughter
Faculty English and Comparative
  Literatures, Institute for the Study of Human Rights

  33

  
Faculty Barnard College

  34

  Kristina Milnor
Faculty Department of Classics, Barnard
  College

  35

  Rosalind Morris
Faculty Department of Anthropology

  36

  Vanessa Agard-Jones
Faculty Anthropology

  37

  Reinhold Martin
Faculty Architecture

  38

  Rhiannon Stephens
Faculty History, A&S

  39

  Sheldon Pollock
Faculty MESAAS

  40

  Lila Abu-Lughod
Faculty Anthropology and IRWGS, Columbia

  41

  James Schamus
Faculty School of the Arts

  42

  Janet Jakobsen
Faculty Women's, Gender and Sexuality
  Studies, Barnard College

  43

  Deborah Paredez
Faculty School of the Arts Writing Program

  44

  Claudia Breger
Faculty Germanic Lang and Lit

  45

  Richard Pena
Faculty School of the Arts/Film

  47

  Susan Riemer Sacks
Faculty Psychology Dept., Barnard College

  48

  Eric Foner
Faculty History (emeritus)

  49

  Sharon Schwartz
Faculty MSPH

  50

  Nick Bartlett
Faculty Assistant Professor, AMEC, Barnard
  College

  51

  Martha Howell
Faculty Department of History

  52

  Merlin Chowkwanyun
Faculty Sociomedical Sciences, Mailman
  School of Public Health

  54

  Robert G. O'Meally
Faculty English Department, African
  American Studies Department, Center for Jazz Studies

  55

  Nadia Abu El-Haj
Faculty Anthropology

  56

  Najam Haider
Faculty Barnard College

  57

  Christy Thornton
Alumni BC 02, SIPA 03, Assistant
  Professor Johns Hopkins

  58

  Paige West
Faculty Claire Tow Professor of
  Anthropology; Director, Center for Study of Social Difference

  59

  Ralph Ghoche
Faculty Department of Architecture,
  Barnard College

  60

  Jean Howard
Faculty Arts and Sciences

  61

  Branden W Joseph
Faculty Art HIstory

  62

  Molly Murray
Faculty Department of English and
  Comparative Literature

  63

  Manisha Sinha
Alumni University of Connecticut

  64

  Helen Weng, PhD
Alumni CC '04

  65

  Sybill Chen
Student History

  66

  Angela Aidala
Faculty SMS/ MSPH

  67

  Andrew Liu
Alumni GSAS, History

  68

  Julian Brave NoiseCat
Alumni Columbia College

  69

  Audra Simpson
Faculty Department of Anthropology

  70

  Lydia H. Liu
Faculty East Asian Languages &
  Cultures/Institute for Comparative Literature & Society

  71

  Marie Myung-Ok Lee
Faculty School of the Arts + Center for
  the Study of Race & Ethnicity (CSER)

  72

  Carly Goodman, Ph.D.
Alumni

  73

  Armando Lozano
Alumni CC, LAW

  74

  Patricia Dailey
Faculty English and Comp Lit

  75

  Daniel Morales
Alumni History Department

  76

  Tovah Klein, PhD
Faculty Director, Toddler Center, Barnard
  College

  77

  John C Stoner
Alumni History, University of Pittsburgh

  78

  Glenn Adler
Alumni GSAS/Political Science

  79

  Ellie Hisama
Faculty Department of Music

  80

  Timothy Patrick McCarthy
Alumni PhD, History, IRAAS

  81

  Anne Goodwin
Non-Columbia affiliate Affordable Power and Justice

  82

  Katrine Jensen
Staff Council for European Studies

  83

  Steven Sherman
Alumni Columbia College '86

  84

  Farina Mir
Alumni GSAS 2002

  85

  
Alumni School of international and public
  affairs

  86

  Michael Bernhard
Alumni PhD 1988, Ehrlich Professor of
  Political Science University of Florida

  87

  Michael Pollak
Alumni GSAS Sociology

  88

  Anna Danziger Halperin
Alumni GSAS '18

  89

  Melissa Morris
Alumni GSAS

  90

  Pablo Piccato
Faculty History

  91

  Michelle Philpo-Denney
Non-Columbia affiliate Horrified U.S. Citizen

  92

  Deborah Eisenberg
Faculty School of the Arts

  93

  Margaret E. Keck
Alumni GSAS Political Science

  94

  Ian Shin
Alumni GSAS '16

  95

  leah dworkin
Alumni school of the arts

  96

  Lisa Brunet, Ph.D.
Alumni GSAS

  97

  Premilla Nadasen
Faculty History

  98

  Alexander Alberro
Faculty Art History

  99

  Kurt Mettenheim
Alumni Political Science - SIPA

  100

  Emmanuelle Saada
Faculty Professor of French & Carnoy
  Family Program Chair of Contemporary Civilization

  101

  Elizabeth Hutchinson
Faculty Art History and Archaeology

  102

  Tom Kalin
Faculty Professor, Columbia University
  School of the Arts, Film

  103

  Deborah Valenze
Faculty Barnard College

  104

  Judith Byfield
Alumni GSAS (History) 1993

  105

  Penny Von Eschen
Alumni William R. Kennan, Jr. Professor
  of American Studies /History, University of Virginia

  106

  An Kint
Alumni GSAS

  107

  Monika Nalepa
Faculty Political Science, The University
  of Chicago

  108

  Ana M Ochoa
Faculty Department of Music

  109

  Rebecca Kobrin
Faculty History Department

  110

  Graciela Montaldo
Faculty LAIC, Columbia

  111

  Illan Gonen
Faculty MESAAS

  112

  Brinkley Messick
Faculty Anthropology

  113

  D. Max Moerman
Faculty Professor & Chair, Department
  of Asian & Middle Eastern Cultures, Barnard; CC '86

  114

  Cailin Hong
Student History, GSAS

  115

  Charry Karamanoukian
Faculty MESAAS

  116

  Lien-Hang Nguyen
Faculty History

  117

  Thai Jones
Staff RBML

  118

  
Alumni GSAS Political Science

  119

  Nan A Rothschild
Faculty Anthropology

  120

  Steve Askin
Alumni Columbia Business School, MBA 1993

  121

  Andor Skotnes
Faculty Former Acting and Assistant
  Director, Columbia Oral History Research Office

  122

  Mark Von Hagen
Faculty History

  124

  Mahmood Mamdani
Faculty Herbert Lehman Professor of
  Government and Professor of Anthropology

  125

  Alice gorton
Student History, GSAS

  126

  Stephanie McCurry
Faculty R Gordon Hoxie Professor of
  History

  127

  Sahar Bostock
Student History, GSAS

  128

  Jane Leftwich Curry
Alumni Department of Political Science

  129

  Celia E. Naylor
Faculty History and Africana Studies,
  Barnard College

  130

  Alice Nash
Alumni History Ph.D.1997

  131

  Joseph Howley
Faculty Department of Classics

  132

  Mariana Katz
Student PhD Student, History Department

  133

  J.T. Roane
Alumni GSAS

  134

  Bailey yellen
Student GSAS

  135

  Jennifer Wenzel
Faculty Dept. of English & Comparative
  Literature; MESAAS

  136

  Mary Gordon
Faculty Barnard College

  137

  Darcy Krasne
Faculty Classics Department

  138

  Genesis Garfio
Alumni CC17

  139

  
Alumni Mailman School of Public Health

  140

  Jeffrey Fagan
Faculty Law School

  141

  Jennifer Lee
Faculty Sociology

  142

  Andrew Lipman
Faculty History, Barnard College

  143

  Cora Cervantes
Alumni GS 16’

  144

  Kendall Thomas
Faculty Law School

  145

  Carol Mason
Faculty Zuckerman Institute

  146

  Claudio Lomnitz
Faculty Anthropology

  147

  Rebecca Vaadia
Student Neurobiology and Behavior program

  148

  Matt Sandler
Staff Center for the Study of Ethnicity
  and Race

  149

  Karina Pantoja
Alumni Columbia College

  150

  Sayantani DasGupta
Faculty Graduate Program in Narrative
  Medicine

  151

  Lucia Saldivar
Alumni Barnard College, Class of 2017

  152

  Juan Gonzalez
Alumni CC

  153

  Denise Frutos
Alumni Psychology

  154

  Christia Mercer
Faculty Philosophy

  155

  Lorenzo Bradford
Alumni Columbia College ‘17

  156

  Silvia Bernardi
Faculty Psychiatry

  157

  Karl Jacoby
Faculty History Department

  158

  Daniela Rodriguez
Alumni

  159

  Alejandro P Desince
Alumni CC ‘18

  160

  Elizabeth Castelli
Faculty Religion, Barnard College

  161

  Romeo Guzman
Alumni History, PhD

  162

  Amanda Hardin
Student History

  163

  Elizabeth Heintges
Student Dept. of Classics

  164

  Eder Gaona-Macedo
Alumni SIPA

  165

  Eliza Zingesser
Faculty French

  166

  Jennifer Scribner
Student Neurobiology & Behavior

  167

  Jane E Turk
Alumni Communications, GSAS

  168

  Dr. Benjamin Weiss
Alumni Columbia College '05

  169

  Maria Victoria Murillo
Faculty GSAS & SIPA

  170

  
Faculty Women’s, Gender and Sexuality
  Studies, Barnard College

  171

  Rebecca E Karl
Alumni Professor, History Department, NYU

  172

  Matthew Haugen
Staff Libraries

  173

  Hong Deng Gao
Student History, Graduate School of Arts
  and Sciences

  174

  Jenni Ingram
Alumni School of social work

  176

  Jonathan Beller
Faculty Eng. & WGSS, Barnard College

  177

  Evan Jewell
Alumni GSAS, Classical Studies

  178

  Rebecca Arteaga
Alumni Columbia College

  179

  Gabriel Solis
Student History PhD program

  180

  Nabiha Nuruzzaman
Alumni Mailman School of Public Health

  181

  Georgia A. Mickey
Alumni Business 1997, Arts & Sciences
  2004

  182

  Harlan D. Chambers
Student Graduate School of Arts and
  Sciences, EALAC

  183

  Nataly Shahaf
Student EALAC

  184

  Shao-Hung Teng
Alumni Film and Media Studies MA

  185

  Adrienne Minh-Châu Lê
Student GSAS History (PhD)

  186

  Nancy Kricorian
Alumni School of the Arts

  187

  Ansley T. Erickson
Faculty Teachers College and Department of
  History

  188

  Lisa Tiersten
Faculty Barnard College, History
  Department

  189

  Cooper Lynn
Alumni Institute of Comparative
  Literature

  190

  Dorothea von Mücke
Faculty Gebhard Professor of German
  Language & Literature, Dept of Germanic Languages

  191

  Daniel Friedrich
Faculty Teachers College, Dept. Of
  Curriculum and Teaching

  192

  Rozena Raja
Student Teachers College

  193

  Dinesh Rathakrishnan
Alumni Mailman School of Public Health

  194

  Jennifer Lena
Faculty Teachers College

  195

  Yasemin Akcaguner
Student GSAS History

  196

  Sophie Schweiger
Student Department of Germanic Languages

  197

  Helen Zhao
Student Philosophy, GSAS

  198

  Rhonesha Blaché
Student Teachers College

  199

  Zainab Bahrani
Faculty Art History and Archaeology

  200

  Karen Seeley
Faculty Anthropology

  201

  Carla Stockton
Alumni G.S. and School of the Arts

  202

  Adam Kosto
Faculty History

  203

  howard greenberg
Alumni school of the arts

  204

  Vera A Nazarian
Alumni School of Arts and Science

  205

  Robert Fuller
Student Teachers College

  206

  Jordan Corson
Student Teachers College

  207

  Jessica Reyna
Student Barnard College ‘16; Columbia
  School of Social Work ‘22

  208

  Silja Weber
Faculty Germanic Languages

  209

  Lynne Guillot
Alumni School of the Arts

  210

  Neil Ziolkowski
Student Germanic Languages

  211

  Marc Van De Mieroop
Faculty History department

  212

  Shezza Abboushi Dallal
Alumni Barnard College

  213

  Rober Jack Gross
Alumni Institute for Comparative
  Literature and Society

  214

  Inderpal Grewal
Non-Columbia affiliate Yale University

  215

  Ann Douglas
Faculty English and Comparative Literature
  Department

  216

  Nick Juravich
Alumni Columbia GSAS (History)

  217

  Wendy Chavkin
Faculty Mailman

  218

  Mary Beth Terry
Faculty Epidemiology

  219

  Rick Moody
Alumni School of the Arts

  220

  Frank Guridy
Faculty History & African American
  African Diaspora Studies

  221

  
Faculty Teachers College

  222

  Jacqueline Siapno
Non-Columbia affiliate Independent Researcher and Former
  Acting First Lady, East Timor (Timor Leste)

  223

  Rosana Koundakjian
Alumni GSAS ‘90

  224

  Casey N. Blake
Faculty History and American Studies

  225

  Dialika Sall
Student GSAS

  226

  Vahe Habeshian
Alumni GS

  227

  Rebecca Jordan-Young
Faculty WGSS, Barnard College

  228

  Donna Medel
Alumni Columbia College

  229

  Karen Ramirez
Alumni Columbia College

  230

  Robert Tiburzi
Alumni College

  231

  Bruce Robbins
Faculty English and Comparative Literature

  232

  Ira Katznelson
Faculty Political Science and History

  233

  María Fernanda Martínez
Alumni Columbia College

  234

  Ayten Gundogdu
Faculty Political Science, Barnard College

  235

  Victoria de Grazia
Faculty History Department

  236

  Gregory Mann
Faculty History

  237

  E. Mara Green
Faculty Anthropology

  238

  Macayla Donegan
Student Neuroscience

  239

  Mabel O. Wilson
Faculty GSAPP/GSAS

  240

  Meredith Gamer
Faculty Department of Art History and
  Archaeology

  241

  
Faculty MESAAS

  242

  Christopher Hoffman
Student Graduate School of Arts and
  Sciences

  243

  Jessica Bulman-Pozen
Faculty Law School

  244

  Kadambari Baxi
Faculty Architecture, Barnard College

  245

  Samantha Van Doran
Student Graduate School of Arts and
  Sciences

  246

  Ivón Padilla-Rodríguez
Student History

  247

  Bette Gordon
Faculty School of the Arts/Film

  248

  
Faculty Psychology, Barnard College

  249

  Jessica Collins
Faculty Associate Professor, Department of
  Philosophy

  250

  Gwendolyn Wright
Faculty Graduate School of Architecture,
  Planning and Preservation

  251

  Madeleine Zelin
Faculty EALAC and History

  252

  Mary Nolan
Alumni GSAS History

  253

  Alan Stewart
Faculty English and Comparative Literature

  254

  Kimi Traube
Alumni CC, SOA

  255

  Kim Fader
Staff Epidemiology, Mailman School of
  Public Health

  256

  Sonam Singh
Faculty Barnard College

  257

  
Non-Columbia affiliate Ball State University

  258

  Michael Perles
Alumni GSAPP, 2016

  259

  Mohamed Kouta
Student GSAS

  260

  Will Owen
Student GSAS

  261

  Áine McLaughlin
Non-Columbia affiliate University of Maryland student

  262

  Jonathan Slater
Student GSAS

  263

  Stefan Andriopoulos
Faculty Germanic Languages

  264

  Alexander Alberro
Faculty Art History

  265

  Chloe Vaughn
Student Germanic Languages (GSAS)

  266

  Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak
Faculty University Professor, Columbia
  University

Friday, July 5, 2019

To Reduce Political Fraud, Budgeting Needs its Own Social Movement (Updated with final Univ of Alaska Budget)

John Warner describes the catastrophic cuts to the University of Alaska as a swan song. The term suggests the end of a model, with a new model to follow. It's easy to be pessimistic about this.  Two economists from the UA-Fairbanks campus do a good job of telling Washington Post readers about the cuts' fiscally-unnecessary destruction. But they sound resigned.

We may default to the idea that an anti-government era is dying, but the new one is helpless to be born.  In fact, the new era is here, but we aren't giving it the help it needs to emerge.

That help includes recognizing that the 41 percent cut to the Alaska university system comes from a political script developed in the 1970s and perfected in the 1980s.  The script is a classic: the candidate buys votes by promising to give away public money.  Two 1970s and 1980s innovations were especially important.  First was the Reaganite claim that the real corruption was to let the public sector keep its money (government was waste, fraud, and abuse) while tax cuts (or Permanent Fund Dividend --PFD- increases, Alaska's version), restored money to its rightful owners.  Second was the construction of an implementation machinery-- a skilled, disciplined cadre of unknown technocratic operatives whose faceless previous deeds would not be subject to empirical assessment and accountability.  The combination of free money and operational obscurity will keep working, regardless of the opposing ideas of  Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and a generation of debt and precarity sufferers if the general public--starting with academics--doesn't get involved in public budgeting.

I know less about the Alaska governor than I do about his newly-imported budget director, but it looks to me like maiming the state universities is the way Dunleavy can set himself up as the next Scott Walker by competing in a national Republican party gang initiation that requires the dead bodies of a few public services run by the liberal professions (teachers and caregivers bad; police good).  The hunter-teacher-principal with the Native wife is now working with a Koch brothers organization (see also a PR Watch report) and has gotten himself the national headlines that he couldn't have without causing a lot of pain.  He's made efforts to suppress public debate.  Still, he can't do it by himself--he needs at least one trained operative with unwavering ideological commitment who can seize governmental control points to awe the voters with overwhelming force.

That operative is Donna Arduin, pictured with Gov Dunleavy above.  He brought her to a state who had never heard of her before this spring--video of her first budget hearing starts with the committee chair cajoling her repeatedly to say a couple of things about who she is because nobody knows.  She finally said she has worked for seven governors in six states.  What she didn't add is that they were all far-right Republicans who were devoted to advancing their political careers by breaking government and giving its money to supporters. She started in Michican in the early 1990s with John Engler, who accelerated that state's downward slide, and worked for Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio in Florida.  She was then dispatched to California, where she helped a governor whom we all remember well.



She more recently worked as "rent-an-axe" for government hater Gov. Bruce Rauner in Illinois, who sowed chaos in part by holding the higher ed budget hostage for months at a time. 

Arduin was a central player in implementing Arnold Schwarzenegger's version of the far-right fiscal playbook.  The starting point is always to create a crisis. First, as noted above, claim current tax levels reflect waste, fraud, and abuse--an unjust taking of personal property like the Vehicle Licensing Fee in California or a reduced PFD distribution in Alaska--and promise big cuts.  Arnold waved brooms and knives to prove this point.  Second, repeat a fairy tale in which the same or better services--the legit ones--can be had for less tax money, along with more prosperity and jobs. This was the task of the "Laffer Curve" of Ronald Reagan fame, in which lower tax rates allegedly produce more business and therefore higher overall tax receipts, so the cuts pay for themselves and all the government stuff you want is still in place.  (Republicans used this line to demobilize opposition to their trillion-dollar tax cut for corporations and the wealthy in 2017.) Third, once you've won election with these paired claims, follow through with the large tax cut you promised, creating a sugar high in the base while also blowing up the budget deficit.  Fourth, use the big deficit to make huge destructive cuts, ideally big enough to change the agencies permanently.

The playbook can be modified while keeping its basic structure. Alaska is a great test case.  It is the third smallest state by population, and for several years has been getting smaller.  It has an extraction economy that depends on the price of oil and gas, and these prices are down from their previous highs.  The state government is dependent on extraction taxes and fees for 85% of its revenues, and now has a deficit that needs to be covered.  It sounds like a good opportunity to drown some government.

Unlike other states, however, Alaska has a Permanent Fund that normally gives a couple of thousand dollars annually to every Alaska resident. In normal years, it partially offsets an elevated cost of living. This fund is currently valued at over $65 billion.  The previous governor cut the divided to use the rest to cover the state deficit.  Dunleavy could continue this policy until oil prices rise again.  He could raise taxes (the current total per capita AK load is about a half of Washington state's, and there is no sales, income, or property tax, so there's some headroom). Dunleavy wears his love for Alaska on his sleeve, so he could use also use PFD to address Alaska's college completion problem (it is 49th of 50 states, page 6), double Native college attendance rates, and similar things that might help move the state away from natural resource dependence.  Dunleavy could have ambitious goals and he has many fiscal options. In the real world, there are always many options. How, then, to get a crisis that can eliminate all options except for massive, destructive cuts?

With the Playbook. First, say the government has had its hand in the people's pockets: promise to restore the Permanent Fund Dividend to its statutory amount-and top up the shortfalls from previous years.  A local TV station made a handy graphic:

Second, say using a third of the PFD reserve in one year (with no new taxes) won't hurt a thing-- health care, schools, universities, ferries, law enforcement, etc.  At Reporting From Alaska, Dermot Cole has a good list of all the cuts Dunleavy promised not to make.  When people respond, well if you're going to spend less on government you'll have to cut something, invoke efficiencies and consolidations--or just make some bullshit up, like Dunleavy did.  He claimed that the state is spending $200 million on jobs that are "funded but not filled," and that there's thus $200 million is savings to be plucked from a tree. (He also trusted that voters are dumb or lazy enough to believe that the state cuts hundreds of checks every two weeks for jobs that don't have people in them.)  Third, once you're elected by promising voters free, painless money, give away public money while refusing to raise taxes.   Fourth, rather than admitting your plan was either dumb or evil, use the deficit to cut everything massively, particularly higher education.  Look familiar?

This is where Donna Arduin comes in.  She is a seasoned pro at seizing control over multiple agencies through a technical rhetoric of process optimization.  Her presentation began by announcing that she had centralized budget development in her office, which meant taking it away from the various state agencies who had long built and submitted their own budgets.  She didn't spell out the obvious implications; operating agencies lose control of their own budgeting, and their local knowledge is purged from the process. Having been in the state for a few weeks, Arduin captured the process and replaces its situated assumptions with her own.

Her assumptions are far-right boilerplate: the public sector is straight waste, all regulation hurts business, only the private sector creates value, government activity should be privatized, its services are for moochers.  One rare press investigation of her assumptions, by a newspaper in Saratoga, Florida, found that they invalidated a consultancy report's conclusions even in the eyes of the Republican politicians who had hired her.   Her goals are always the same, and her means entirely predictable.

I reported almost ten years ago on one of Arduin's impacts in California:
When Arnold Schwarzenegger became governor in 2003, in the middle of yet another three-year reduction in state higher education funding, his budget director, Donna Arduin, privately told university leaders that she would push for continued state funding cuts to force the University of California and the California State University to implement major hikes in tuition. Arduin got much of what she wanted. Partly inspired by fear, university leaders signed a “compact” with the Schwarzenegger administration that built in 7–10 percent annual tuition increases between 2005–06 and 2010–11. This meant that tuition would inevitably rise at two to three times the 3–4 percent increases targeted for state funds. 
Arduin was in California's Department of Finance for less than a year, but UCOP never fully recovered.  They got scared off talking about rebuilding public funding to restore or improve quality.  Now, after years of tuition freezes, they build state requests around promises to generate an extra 20,000 degrees or so per year for a decade, which will consume any new funds and more. The Arnold-Arduin shock doctrine has locked in privatization and stagnation.

Now it's deja vu all over again: "Alaska University System May ‘Never Recover’ From Governor’s Budget Cuts, Leaders Warn." Those leaders are right.

In the middle of various state chopping jobs, Arduin formed a consulting firm with curvemeister Laffer.  One of Laffer's main clients was the far-right Kansas governor Sam Brownbeck, who, following the script, promised that massive cuts in taxes and government would rocket the state economy into a new age of riches.  Laffer helped Kansas refute his own theory yet again.  Tax cuts did not stimulate business investment, job growth, and tax receipts.  They gave investors and businesses windfall revenues.  Along the way, the Brownbeck-Laffer crew raided state reserves to try to hide their failure. Brownback's Republican legislature finally reacted to the giant hole he blew in the budget by revolting against the model in 2017, after it was too late: Kansas will be digging itself out for years and years.  In June, to honor Laffer's lifetime achievement with wrecking governments, Donald Trump awarded him the Congressional Medal of Freedom.

The playbook is always the same.

How do the Charlie Browns stop running for the anti-tax football?

Through a few things:

--Remembering what happened to the ball last time.  This means history and journalism, in circulation.  The short AFL-CIO video I linked to is a good example of user-friendly critique.  There needs to be serious, consistent coverage of the actual results of hatchet-people like Arduin--of what they have actually wrought.  And when coverage does happen, people need actually to read it.  Reading articles will help people like this guy, who, living on an island, was surprised that Dunleavy cut the ferry system after promising not to cut the ferry system.   Dude, you seem to have missed the last fifty years of American politics. But one article can bring you up to speed.

--Massed theoretical assault on the stupid theory that government produces no value-- is a dead weight except for people that need handouts.  The stupid theory has all sorts of social and ethical problems--it is grounded in racism and sexism, for starters--and gross political bias.  But it also needs to be shown to be factually wrong, across the full range of cases, and those results need to be distributed.  In reality, public goods are the majority of value in a society, and make private production possible.  In Alaska, as elsewhere, public goods are the main, really the sole source of decolonized resource use, racial justice, sustainable environmental policies, and progress in human welfare.  Bankrupt far-right economics needs to be replaced with a completely different model.  The work is underway, but it needs to go faster.

--Confrontational, persistent political pressure on politicians like Dunleavy to stop lying.  His fiscal claims during the campaign were fraudulent. They should be described as such, in the same way that journalists can now write sentences like "Today Donald Trump falsely claimed that . . ." The big lovable bear of a man dodged and weaved and minimized and evaded and lied his way through the campaign.  He should have been pressed hard then.  He continues to lie about the non-effects of his cuts -- "we can't continue to be all things to all people," or "it will be tough for a while but we'll get through this."  Call him out.  Raise the political cost of lying to people's faces over and over.  Only then will it will happen less often.

--Progressives are also going to have to bite the bullet and fight for mass scale budget literacy.  Budgets are a dominant language of political life.  Public systems and choices are more complicated than they were in the heyday of the party system, and people's educations haven't caught up.  Nor have their desires to educate themselves about how public money makes things happen. Not knowing that Dunleavy's budget vetoes would wreck higher ed, ferries, some forms of health care, etc. is a form of entitlement.  Not guessing that his evasions meant cuts know is a kind of privilege.  You sometimes hear leftists patronizing people who can "follow the arithmetic."  Well we can stay dumb about budgets--and stay Charlie Brown.

But nobody has to.

UPDATE
On August 13, 2019, the governor of Alaska and University of Alaska officials announced a deal to reduce the budget cut by about half, and spread the cut over three years.  The University president made the mistake of calling this a "pivot to the positive," when it may well have been the cut Gov. Dunleavy wanted from the start.  The Board of Regents did lift their Declaration of Financial Exigency, which was excellent news for UA employees. Dermot Cole gets behind the news coverage: on August 16, he pointed out that, "There is no hint in the so-called compact that the regents have to follow Dunleavy’s orders, which is appropriate because the Alaska Constitution says the regents are not subservient to the governor."  He suggested that Dunleavy reduced the cut because of a growing recall campaign. 

 Cole concludes,
As soon as the state budget is signed, the university will be free from the Dunleavy blackmail plan and the regents should begin the task of seeking the funding level UA needs from the Legislature, ignoring the antics of a governor on the run from a recall. 
The Dunleavy blackmail attempt, if he decides to continue with it, will do nothing but boost the recall campaign.
I hope that is true. Other directly related posts are dated August 13th and September 18 
(reporting on internal University feuding that may break up the UA system in spite of the reduced budget cuts).

And you'll be shocked to learn that Donna Arduin has left the building.