Jesse Kiehl, a Juneau Assembly member who also works as an aide to state Sen. Dennis Egan, D-Juneau. "We're all going to have to work on this stuff collaboratively."

The problem Jessie is none of you folks in Juneau are working "collaboratively".  You leave Walker no choice but to use the power of his pen for your inaction. 

Allegedly, Kendall Toyota in Anchorage just cut sales and finance salaries 5%.  It's a sign of the times. Either the State reduces expenses, renegotiate retirement and payroll or we will follow the path of United Airlines, Orange County, GM, Chrysler, etc.  The writing is on the wall.  

My suggestion is cut state salaries on a sliding scale.  $250k+ salary takes a 20% cut, $200-249k 15% cut , $100-199k 10% cut, $50-99k 5% cut and anything under $49k is exempt.  Next topic, rural school budgets.  It's time to consolidate that behemoth. In the alternative, let the legislature work on stuff "collaboratively" all the way to bankruptcy.  That will fix the budget.