By ALEX GIMARC
In the political world, you can almost always explain past and future actions by simply following the money. Who does this spending benefit? Who is getting political support? Who is being excoriated? Who is yelling loudest?
Here in Alaska, education is one flash point, with the money going to the various education unions rather than “The Children.” Failure to belly up to the trough with sufficient support is painted as lack of support for The Children rather than very real concern for the complete lack of accountability and abysmal performance of public education in this state over the last several decades.
Similarly, the push for a return to defined benefit pensions for law enforcement is another, newer one, that will quickly be extended to all state union employees. Failure to support is excoriated as lack of support for law enforcement, a laughable charge given the robust gun culture of Alaska.
We can’t afford either, but no matter, as the “All Your PFD Belong To Us Caucus” (formerly the Bipartisan Caucus), have them paid for, first with shrinking the Permanent Fund dividend to a vestigial $1,000 and when that’s gone, they go after the corpus of the Permanent Fund itself to pay for their new obligations.
Who benefits from all this? Democrats, who are purchasing the votes of their supporters with other people’s money. In fact, with the theft of the PFD, they are purchasing political support with the money of individual union members and their families.
This is such a great scam that Republicans have gotten into the game. The two vectors are rural broadband and climate change / green energy spending. Lisa Murkowski is the most obvious practitioner of this.
Rural broadband is a uniquely Alaskan form of grift, with tens of millions of dollars appropriated to make rural broadband available to the Bush. The politicians who support this grift give the free money (taxpayer’s money) to broadband providers who lay fiber and hook up individuals and communities to the internet. Those providers then turn right around and write checks to political campaigns of politicians who support the ongoing grift.
This grift completely ignores the rise of Starlink, satellite-based broadband that can be hooked up for a few hundred dollars with monthly service in the $120 range. But nobody gets elected pushing Starlink. Note that if individuals are getting their full statutory PFD, they can afford roughly three Starlink subscriptions per year. That won’t elect any democrats or rainy day RINOs, but no matter.
Our final example comes from climate change / green energy spending most recently authorized in the Biden Inflation Reduction Act passed in 2022. A lot of the money authorized has yet to be spent or committed. The Trump DOGE team recommended eliminating most of the unallocated spending, something which distresses Alaska’s Senior US Sen. Lisa Murkowski greatly.
When you have a huge pile of money lying around, there is always the possibility of graft and corruption, though in this case that corruption is just as possible as night following day.
The Biden administration managed to shovel $100 billion dollars in green energy grants, loans and commitments out of the front door of the Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office (LPO) in the 76 days between Nov 5 and Trump’s inauguration Jan 21. That program managed to write just over $40 billion in the 15 years of its existence before Election Day 2024. No corruption there, I’m sure (/sarc).
Of course, our senior US senator is completely silent about that corruption, though she is quite vocal about reversing the cuts.
One of the observations made by Elon Musk during the DOGE process is the following:
“One lesson I remember from the PayPal days: Do you know who complained the loudest? Fraudsters. There would be immediate over the top indignation from the fraudsters. We’re going to see outrageous stuff from fraudsters as we continue cracking down, they’re the loudest.”
It is always nice when the Other Side tells you who they are, what they are, and what they want. It is even better to listen to them and have an appropriate, timely response.
Alex Gimarc lives in Anchorage since retiring from the military in 1997. His interests include science and technology, environment, energy, economics, military affairs, fishing and disabilities policies. His weekly column “Interesting Items” is a summary of news stories with substantive Alaska-themed topics. He was a small business owner and Information Technology professional.
I do take exception about the remark involving law enforcement and feel this is a display of ignorance. We have a gun culture so we needn’t worry about staffing issues? Are we encouraging vigilantes? What about those who may lack the physical abilities and skills to fend off an attacker? The pension system will offer choices…stay on Tier 4 (wise choice for those who feel they may not hold employment for 20 years), or accept the pension. We then have committed, experienced, seasoned officers and officials who will be staffing our emergency services.
Given the choices, I would posit that Vigilance Committees are a far better solution than the current set of PFD pirates feasting off our PFDs. And should it come to that you greedy vermin have nobody to blame but yourselves. Cheers –
It is not vigilantism to protect yourself; it is common sense.
“…those who may lack the physical abilities and skills to fend off an attacker”, as you state, are in big trouble because by the time law enforcement shows up (generally ranging from 5 to 10 minutes or longer for emergency calls) in most cases the show is already over. Law enforcement is not prophylactic: it does not exist to directly protect the citizen; it exists to clean up the mess and enforce the law AFTER it has been broken. There is some indirect protection of the citizen due to the potential deterrent effect of the threat of the law actually being enforced, but that also has to be supported through the judicial system as well, support that is more and more lacking these days for less serious crimes that then have the potential to embolden the criminal to more serious criminal activity.
I took the remark to mean Alaska’s respect for guns/”gun culture” indicates a corresponding respect for the rule of law, that’s all.
GCI has led the charge for cutting the PFD.
They love Lyman Hoffman and Bryce Edgmon. Nuff said.
We still have our. VOTE
Outstanding article! And, true.
Well stated.
The ‘Inflation Reduction Act’ (IRA) was a grifter’s paradise. Address the Climate Change crisis? Ha! The printing presses were working overtime at Treasury. Their greatest concern was getting that huge pile of money out the door before the ‘Orange Man Bad’ crowd took over. Lisa Murkowski championed the senseless spending chaos that was the IRA: funding going to only favored people & causes. Hopefully, the Trump administration will use the ‘rescission’ process to deal with the wasteful spending that the IRA and other bills represent.