How Article IX, Section 16 Protects Alaskans’ PFD
By Edward Martin, Jr. and Natalie Spaulding
There is a temptation in public life to treat the Constitution as a ceiling to press against, bend around, or quietly ignore when it becomes inconvenient rather than a compass that guides Alaskan policy. Moral values, such as those written in Romans 12, challenge us to sober judgment, honest accounting, and a renewal of the mind that prioritizes truth and integrity over expediency. Alaska’s treatment of the Permanent Fund Dividend fails to live up to those standards.
Article IX, Section 16 of the Alaska Constitution contains one of the clearest fiscal directives written into our governing document. The statue begins: “Except for appropriations for Alaska permanent fund dividends…” —expressly exempting Permanent Fund Dividend appropriations from the constitutional spending limit. Those words were chosen deliberately. They were not decorative, accidental, or symbolic. They reflected a conviction that the people’s dividend is not part of government spending and must never be crowded out by the growth of government itself.
The exemption in Article IX, Section 16 establishes a safeguard, a moral and structural line in the sand. The framers understood what experience teaches: if citizens’ dividends are forced to compete with government programs under a single cap, government will always win. Hence, the Constitution restrained government first and protected the dividend outright.
However, the structure only works if the State is willing to be honest about what counts, what does not, and why. Today, the State lacks that transparency. Alaska’s budget process no longer allows citizens to see clearly whether the constitutional exemption for the Permanent Fund Dividend is being honored or quietly inverted. There is no transparent, verifiable accounting that shows what appropriations count toward the Article IX, Section 16 limit, what is excluded, and whether reductions to the dividend are driven by unavoidable necessity or by policy preference.
The result is confusion at best and misdirection at worst.
Government spending expands without a clear, publicly certified demonstration that the constitutional limit has been maintained, while the dividend— expressly exempt from that limit— is treated as discretionary. Citizens are told there is “not enough money,” even though the exemption designed to protect their share goes unexamined. This reverses the constitutional order and dulls the public conscience.
If PFD appropriations do not count against the spending limit, and if government appropriations are constitutionally restrained, then the failure to fund the full statutory dividend demands an explanation. The Legislature cannot simultaneously claim fidelity to the spending limit and deny responsibility for fully funding the dividend that the Constitution anticipated and protected. One of those positions must yield to truth.
Transparency would force this reckoning. A simple, mandatory public certification of Article IX, Section 16 compliance would show whether government spending has in fact reached the constitutional limit, whether dividend reductions are being used to mask overspending elsewhere, and whether the exemption is being respected or exploited. Once those facts are visible, the debate changes. The question is no longer whether Alaska can afford a full dividend, but why it chooses not to fund one.
Public trust does not erode all at once; it dissolves when citizens see constitutional language treated as optional, statutory obligations reduced without a forthright explanation, and no clear accounting of limits that are supposed to restrain power. The Permanent Fund Dividend survives not only because it is written in statute, but because Alaskans believe the rules governing it are real. Opacity erodes that belief.
Restoring order does not require new theories or partisan maneuvers. It requires a return to constitutional humility. It demands clear exemption of dividend appropriations from the government spending limit, honest accounting of government expenditures, and the moral clarity to admit when policy choices overstep constitutional structure.
The Permanent Fund Dividend exemption acts as a litmus test for the integrity of the Alaska Legislature. If the State will not honor the explicit fiscal exemption in Article IX, Section 16, then the spending limit itself becomes performative rather than real. This is no longer a partisan argument. It is a question of constitutional fidelity and civic integrity.
Alaskans deserve forthright answers. The Constitution has provided the rule. Do we have the will to live by it and insist on protecting its integrity?
Bunch of JW Wentworth Socialist Republicans It’s my PFD and I want it now. Damm the budget full welfare check ahead.
If you think that the pillaging of the statutory PFD isn’t going to fund welfare you need to have your head examined.
Ahhh your going with the It’s not welfare if it’s my welfare argument. How very Faux Comservative of you
“Wha wha wha give me my free money”, saith the Libertarians.
This editorial is arguing for a large dividend. If a large dividend is paid, then eventually taxes, most likely income taxes, will be instituted to pay for government. This will result in a situation where the state government taxes income, earned through hard work, just to pay dividends that people get for doing nothing more than living in AK for another year. I do not believe it would be fair to tax people just to pay dividends.
Snowy, whether it’s a large one dividend or not isn’t the issue! We never for years, complained about the amount…don’t you remember back then. What really happened was our Law breakers choose not to follow the Statutes & the Constitution and is violating you!
What other Statutory & Constitutional rights are you currently willing to give up, due to, their violations of law & Oath? Ask the Supreme Court Justice’s if they even considered Article IX Section 16, ( Except for appropriations for Alaska permanent fund dividends, First line created as [Amended 1982] the same year of our first Dividend payout that’s not a coincidence!
What your talking about doesn’t address the articles statement just diverts the whole issue…sorry I can’t change, what you fear, hasn’t happened yet. We have only pointed out the FACTS !
I think you do need to consider the consequences of your proposals. If the state pays large dividends, then where will the money for state government come from? Dunleavy proposed cuts to spending and then he buckled under the pushback. So it doesn’t seem likely that the money will come from spending cuts unless political courage can win the day. The oil tax regime under SB21 has meant that the state will get little revenue from the new oil being found, so no relief on the oil tax front unless SB21 can be replaced with something more fair. That leaves personal taxes, either income taxes or sales taxes.
There is a lot of magical thinking on this issue that i think will lead us to the unfair situation of the state taxing individuals to pay dividends. Is that what you want?
Snowy, those are fair questions—but they rest on a premise the Constitution itself rejects. The Permanent Fund Dividend was designed so government would first live within constitutional limits, not so citizens would receive what is “left over.” Article IX deliberately separates government spending from the people’s share of resource wealth. When the state can only function by reducing or eliminating that share, the problem isn’t the dividend—it’s the structure of spending.
The choice is not “dividends or government.” The Constitution already provides the order of operations: enforce spending limits, require transparency, and make honest choices about taxes only after government demonstrates discipline. Alaska has not done that. We’ve expanded administrative costs, relied on accounting workarounds, and avoided structural reform.
As for taxes funding dividends—that flips the Constitution on its head. Dividends are not welfare; they are a distribution of resource wealth held in trust for the people. If the state reaches a point where it must tax citizens to replace what it has already taken from them, that signals a constitutional failure, not an economic inevitability.
Reasonable people can debate SB21, spending levels, and tax policy. But none of those debates justify abandoning the constitutional structure that protects both the people and the future of the state. Fidelity comes first—policy follows. Sorry Snowy, there is no magical nothing here just Truth to Law! Thank you once more for your comments, Liberty Ed
“Alaskans deserve forthright answers” but they will never get them from the Alaska legislature. Don’t even bother thinking that some day that will change.
Great informative article Ed! The problem as I see it is We the People are now We the Timid. I’m convinced most people have been conditioned since birth to accept government officials as their rulers and possible benefactors. Wear your mask, stand six feet apart and get the vaccine being just a few examples of the ready-to-do-as-told attitude of most people during the recent scamdemic. They were too eager to do as told. They forced their will on others because they were “on the right side” of the scam and had mob mentality backup. It proved to me that most people don’t care that they are sheep (even when they know they’re being played and are able to suspend all logic) and we have to be properly politically aligned with the current political landscape in order to expect much other than an abrogation of our basic civil rights and taking of our assets through taxation and other fees. Death and taxes. We’ve been conditioned be civil and quiet, pay our taxes and do as we’re told. Sheep. What freedoms do we have that do not require a government issued permit, license, tag or fee or permission to participate in? It’ll take a miracle to ever restore our Republic.
“ It proved to me that most people don’t care that they are sheep (even when they know they’re being played and are able to suspend all logic)”. Perfect description of the Trump cult.
Mr. Singh, I was going to let your comment go without any concern but here you go! This article isn’t about personalities or national politics. It’s about whether Alaska honors its own Constitution. Labeling fellow citizens as “sheep” or invoking partisan slurs doesn’t answer the constitutional question at issue: whether Article IX is being followed as written. Reasonable people can disagree on policy, but dismissing constitutional arguments with insults avoids the substance rather than engaging it.
Thank you for your very thoughtful comment , Liberty Ed
Twice a year, every year, Alaskans argue about the dividend. As our state slips into administrative insolvency, the TAKERS demand full payment of the dividend. The dividend is a fiscal remnant, it is no longer supportable and it must be done away with.
Evan, this framing skips the core issue. The Permanent Fund Dividend is not a “remnant” of convenience—it is a constitutional construct, expressly protected and expressly exempted from the spending limit in Article IX. If the state is facing administrative insolvency, that is a function of unchecked government growth, not the people’s dividend. Eliminating the PFD does not fix insolvency; it simply removes the last constitutional restraint that forces government to live within its means.
Thank you for your response nevertheless! Liberty Ed
Great job, Ed! Keep educating Alaskans!
Hi Ed good article. Unfortunately we will not have honest politics until the legislature is moved to the road system from south Seattle where it currently is located. The current location is a detriment to the public And the politicians it’s interesting they don’t understand that. It’s also interesting to hear politicians constantly flapping about us being broke when we have $90 billion in a savings account another $6 billion in budget reserve and who knows how many more billions rat holed in accounts we don’t know about. Yet we can hardly fix a road. Very frustrating situation.
All I want for 2026 is to keep away from sick, deranged left-wingers who share very little of their collective wealth at my blog. My writing days are very limited now, considering my own health (TDS), which I attribute to 50 years of crappy writing and exclusive political involvement with nasty Democrats. If Suzanne would consider hiring a reformed, former Newsminer editor, I would gladly come on board and start slinging mud in the opposite direction. I have learned the error of my ways. I don’t want to be pushing daisies at 73, like some people I know.
May I quote Liberty Ed: “This article isn’t about personalities or national politics. It’s about whether Alaska honors its own Constitution. Labeling fellow citizens as “sheep” or invoking partisan slurs doesn’t answer the constitutional question at issue: whether Article IX is being followed as written. Reasonable people can disagree on policy, but dismissing constitutional arguments with insults avoids the substance rather than engaging it.
Thank you for your very thoughtful comment , Liberty Ed”