Saying he wanted to “fix Alaska,” Gov. Bill Walker defended his cuts and told a standing-room crowd at the Chilkat Center lobby Friday to pressure legislators to address the state’s $4 billion deficit.

Walker has come under fire for his June decision to reduce permanent fund checks to $1,022 from an anticipated $2,052.

Continued reliance on savings would force the state to dip into its Permanent Fund, jeopardizing the future of the annual dividend program, Walker told a crowd of about 130 residents. Reducing checks was “by far” the hardest decision he has had to make, he said.

“Taking $1,000 from every Alaskan was a very big deal, but a couple more years of high payout with no changes, there will be no dividend program… I want the dividend program to continue on. It sounds a little counter-intuitive, but that’s the tough lifting,” Walker said.

“You lose 80 percent of your income, in my world, you make some changes… You make some hard decisions. What are you going to do? You’re not going to live on savings,” he said.

Walker compared himself to Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, the commercial jet pilot who was left with little choice but to make an emergency landing on New York’s Hudson River in 2009.

“People like to remind me that when I ran for governor, I had no intention of touching the permanent fund dividend. I can relate to Captain Sully, because I had no intention of doing several of the things that I’ve had to do.”

Critics of the decision say it was unnecessary or that other items should have been cut.

Because of falling oil prices, the state’s unrestricted general fund dropped from $7 billion to $1.2 billion from 2012 to 2016, he said. He noted that education alone costs the state $1.3 billion annually.

The Alaska Legislature has largely balked on his ideas to increase revenues through new taxes on gasoline, mining and fisheries, Walker said. He said he has cut most state departments about 20 percent, but has cut Alaska Department of Fish and Game by 30 percent and the state Department of Commerce and Economic Development 61 percent.

“We’ve got to make some changes and there are absolutely no popular levers to pull that anybody’s going to feel any good about,” he said.

Walker also has proposed a state income tax that would raise an estimated $200 million annually. He said Friday that 28 percent of Alaska workers don’t live in the state, accounting for $2.6 billion in wages.

“They come up, make a nice living on our resources and go home. That’s fine. … I wanted to welcome them to the problem, and to the solution. So an income tax would do that,” Walker said.

Walker urged residents to participate in upcoming legislative hearings on budget issues and to express to legislators that action must be taken. “The critical thing is letting legislators know it’s okay to make tough decisions. It’s okay. In fact, it’s not okay not to.”

Since the advent of the oil revenues, Alaska has the lowest taxes in the nation, on a personal basis, he sad. “If all my (revenue proposals) last legislative session had passed, we’d still be the lowest in the nation, with a $1,000 dividend.”

Walker suggested that his budget proposals would stabilize the state’s budget, preventing jumps and drops that come with sole reliance on oil income.

“My vision is to look out five years and know what our income is going to be, roughly. I’d love to be able to forward fund education for four or five years. … Let’s fix Alaska one time and not do this every time the price of oil goes down,” he said.

In an interview, Walker stressed that money saved by reducing dividend checks remained in the permanent fund.

Author