Simple math in the 2018 campaign showed that you couldn’t pay full back dividends, fully pay new ones — unless you massively cut and destroyed the university, schools, roads, state services and healthcare for the poor at the same time.
Oil prices would have to soar beyond well known fantasy expectations to have made up the difference. But Gov. Mike Dunleavy won’t cut billions in credits and state debt. Fantasy campaign promises are no more than a lie; an opportunistic “pig in a poke” fake news.
Your Permanent Fund Dividend is just as much affected by the $26 a barrel profits the oil industry gets out of Alaska.
Do the math. The profit alone exceeds $4.9 billion a year taken from Alaska (2018) 518,400 barrels per day, 189.2 million barrels per year. Add to that billions in “tax credits.” Your PFD is just as directly affected by oil industry profits and credits that are many multiples of the PFD.
Just imagine the net profit the industry extracted from Alaska and your PFD for the over 19+ billion barrels through the pipeline since 1977.
The oil industry and their politicians can spare me their lobbyist supposed “expert” arguments about oil economics in Alaska. They have never been truly transparent about the detailed financial dealings for the 45 years I’ve been in this state; that the public has a right to know. The reality as to how much has been given away would horrify the public.
Yet those who claim the PFD is their “birthright” don’t seem to be concerned by the massive profits given away for billions of barrels that flowed through the pipeline.
It’s a simple fact that Alaska is, and will always be dependent on monetizing its oil resources to the maximum — for Alaska. Lt. Gov. Kevin Meyer slipping in his billions in credits for the oil industry with the help of former AG and Resources Commissioner, now U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, directly lowers your PFD just like any other money given away.
Along comes Dunleavy who outsources Alaska budgeting to the Koch Brothers carpetbagger Budget Director Donna Arduin. One only has to review her past budget “consultant” destruction ravages in Michigan, Illinois, and under California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, to see how we got here.
Arduin is doing exactly what she was hired to do by Dunleavy and the GOP who tasked the Koch Brothers and their Americans for Prosperity to do critical Alaska policies and budgeting.
But short-time outsider Arduin is making policy with each and every budget recommendation. The budget is the true expression of policy implementation. After she revels in her jihad of budget destruction she’ll let the “locals” deal with the carnage of implementation.
Dunleavy’s 10-year budget program will do to Alaska what the Koch Brothers did to their home state Kansas. Destroy schools, universities, public services, senior services, healthcare, etc. so monies could be transferred to billionaires such as the Koch brothers and their political cronies.
That’s what the Koch “Flint Hills” boys envision for Alaska.
The Alaska GOP is handling Alaska revenues and resources just like Trump did in the 2017 so called tax reform giveaway. A tax law that transferred 83% of trillions in benefits to the 1%; 17% among the other 99%.
As to the PFD, that is nothing more than a socialist type welfare payment. Free money for nothing by residency. Calling it a “dividend” doesn’t change that. I’m OK with that. I don’t need to hide behind the “fake news” of calling it some capitalist dividend so voters can feel good about embracing a socialist payment.
In reality, no Alaska law or Constitutional provision can shield the Permanent Fund, it’s capital and investments, and consequently the PFD, from any creditor/debtor claim if it comes to that; just like claims against any other state asset.
Alaska budgeting doesn’t have to be this way. Yes, belts have to be tightened, real cuts and sacrifices made. Legislators – do your job!
The GOP loves to call themselves “conservatives.” You conserve, they reap.
Dunleavy and the Wasilla contingent also wanted to corral the Legislature in their backyard so they can browbeat them like some military Junta.
Enough.
• Anselm Staack, is registered non-affiliated, is a CPA and an attorney who has been an Alaska resident for over 45 years. He was the Treasury Comptroller for Alaska under Gov. Jay Hammond and worked directly on the creation of the Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation. He resides in Juneau. My Turns and Letters to the Editor represent the view of the author, not the view of the Juneau Empire.
