Last week, the Alaska Legislature’s game of chicken came to an abrupt, yet predictable end. The House Democrats drove a rig heavily laden with an Alaska Permanent Fund dividend restructure, an income tax, and a variety of other add-ons that were attractive to some and frightening to others. The Senate majority drove a lighter, yet still dangerous vehicle. In addition to a PFD restructure, it was loaded with cuts to education, and hiding under the hood, ironically, was an increase in the motor fuel tax. As the two sped toward each other, Alaskans watched apprehensively.
This was not your average game of chicken; the kind where two testosterone-filled young males meet on a rural country road. Instead, in the center of the course was a grandstand filled with the business elite, public employee union leadership, and lobbyists for the University of Alaska and public school districts throughout the state. The bleacher seats were filled with state grant recipients and public employees. All of those sitting had a lot to lose. They were concerned that they might not get their usual yearly budget increases, which would force them to get creative with how they budgeted their money.
The spectators invited to sit were only a small portion of those gathered. Most stood, lining the road: seniors living on fixed incomes, hard-working low-income families struggling to provide the basics for their children, recent high school graduates trying to scratch together money for college or rent and those living in places with limited economic opportunities. All of these average, hard-working people had come to rely on one thing over the years: a permanent fund dividend check to help pay rent or property taxes, buy life and automobile insurance or school clothes or possibly enjoy a family vacation. Last year, the instigator of this game of chicken vetoed half of their PFD, and they were anxious to see the outcome of this year’s game. Collectively, it meant a lot more to them than it did to those sitting.
As the two vehicles raced toward each other, engines whining, exhaust spewing out the pipes, it seemed like a collision was inevitable. Who would swerve first? Would there be a head-on collision, creating a government shutdown? The House majority had expertly prepared their vehicle with a bargaining technique combining Saul Alinsky tactics and strategy outlined in Donald Trump’s “The Art of the Deal.” The Senate majority was poorly prepared for this game as they were mostly concerned with what the media would report about the way their vehicle looked.
The cars were seconds away from hitting each other. There was silence in the crowd as everyone collectively took a deep breath. At the last moment, both vehicles swerved. The House majority just enough to avoid the impact, but the Senate majority veered so far to the left that they struck those standing. You could hear the sickening crunch of the reduction in this year’s permanent fund dividend check. Panicked, the crowd tried to flee, but there was nowhere to escape the poor maneuvering by the vehicle that should have been their champion.
In the carnage, you could pick out individuals who had been injured: restaurant workers suffering from cuts to their hours because people did not go out to eat as much, seniors trying to stop the bleeding from their limited financial reserves, single mothers with broken hearts worried about how they would make up for their lost income. However, in the grandstands it was quite a different scene. There was a smug satisfaction shared by most. For them it was quite a show, and although they didn’t get everything that they wanted (such as a broad-based tax scheme), it was a start. As they were leaving, a public employee commented as he pointed at the devastation on the side of the road, “My raise this year will be the amount of that truck driver’s PFD cut.”
• Todd Smoldon lives in Willow, Alaska and has been an Alaska resident for 30 years. He earned his BA in economics and master’s in teaching from UAA and has been teaching high school economics for 20 years.
