Cook Inlet gas is running out, and that is not a prediction; it is literally happening right now. Utilities are already lining up import terminals so we can buy someone else's gas while Alaska sits on decades of supply on the North Slope. That is backward, and Valley families are the ones who pay for it every time a heating bill or an electric bill goes up.

I support building the North Slope gasline and getting gas flowing to Southcentral. It means work for the Valley trades, real revenue for the state, and a heating bill that does not swing wildly every winter.

What I will not support is writing a blank check. Alaskans own a quarter of this project, and we deserve a deal with firm timelines, honest cost numbers, and consequences if the developer does not deliver. I will vote for the pipeline, but I will definitely read the fine print first.

Alaska has been running the state on one-year fixes for more than a decade, and the result is what you would expect. Every session becomes a fight over the dividend, the university and the ferry system get cut and then partially restored, and businesses cannot plan because nobody knows what the rules will be next June.

I do not think the answer is a single silver bullet, and I am suspicious of anyone who tells you it is. A real plan means deciding what state government is actually responsible for, funding those things at a level that works, and then matching revenue to that number instead of pretending the Permanent Fund earnings will cover everything forever.

It means a dividend formula written in statute that the Legislature actually follows, so families can budget around it and politicians stop campaigning on a number they have no intention of paying. It also means being honest that spending cuts alone will not close a gap this size, and neither will taxes alone.

I am willing to have that conversation in public and take the heat for it, which is more than the last several Legislatures have been willing to do.

Anyone who commutes out of the Valley knows the Glenn Highway is not built for the number of people using it, and anyone who drives the Palmer-Wasilla Highway at five o'clock knows we outgrew that road a decade ago.

This is the fastest-growing part of the state, and our roads, water and sewer systems, and school buildings have not kept up. The frustrating part is that Alaska keeps leaving federal match money on the table because the state does not budget its share, which means we pay full price later for projects we could have gotten at a discount.

I will fight for the Valley's share of transportation dollars, for the maintenance work that keeps a road from turning into a rebuild, and for broadband that reaches the households at the end of the road system and not just the ones easiest to wire.

Infrastructure is not glamorous work, but it is the difference between a community that grows well and one that just gets more crowded.

Parents are not asking for much. They want to know their kid can read at grade level, that the classroom isn't so crowded the teacher can't give them the attention they deserve, and that they can walk into the school and get a straight answer about what their child is learning.

All three of those are reasonable, and none of them are partisan.

What I hear from teachers is that they are working two jobs and buying classroom supplies with their own money.

My job in Juneau is to fund our schools at a level that works and ensure public funds are directed into classrooms. Nobody would tell you that better fire protection comes from cutting a fire department's budget, or that our law enforcement officers would respond faster with less money and fewer people.

Why would we believe that less money would create better educational outcomes? Funding buys capacity in every other public service we care about, and schools are no different.

I have spent a decade as a nurse, so I know what it looks like when someone waits too long to get care because the appointment is three months out or the specialist is an hour away in Anchorage. Alaskans pay some of the highest healthcare prices in the country, and here in the Valley we also have a workforce problem, with not enough providers, not enough behavioral health capacity, and clinics that cannot fill positions because it costs too much to live and practice here.

That is a fixable problem, and it starts with training and keeping our own people through nursing and allied health programs at Mat-Su College, licensing rules that stop punishing qualified providers for moving here, and telehealth that actually reaches the people at the end of the road. Veterans deserve the same attention, because too many of us are still fighting the VA for care we already earned.

I am not interested in a partisan argument about healthcare. I am interested in whether a family in Palmer can see a doctor this month.