President Joe Biden didn’t approve the ConocoPhillips Willow Project for the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska due to the pressure from Alaska’s delegation. It wasn’t the persuasive pressure from Sen. Lisa Murkowski or Rep. Mary Peltola. In remarks in Canada on Friday, he mentioned nothing about Alaska Natives going to Washington to lobby for or against the project, or the fact that the entire Alaska House of Representatives, which agrees on almost nothing, signed a resolution of support for the project.
Instead, he was advised by his lawyers that his administration would lose the subsequent lawsuit, if he denied the permit.
“My strong inclination was to disapprove of it across the board but the advice I got from counsel was that if that were the case, I may very well lose … that case in court to the oil company and then not be able to do what I really want to do beyond that,” Biden told reporters Friday during a news conference alongside Canada Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who is a foe of the petroleum energy sector and free enterprise in general.
Biden then described his Willow decision as a “hell of a trade off” for the millions of acres of land that had been set aside generations ago for oil production in Alaska that he will now block.
In the approval of the Willow master development plan, ConocoPhillips will be allowed to construct up to three drill sites of the five it proposed. It will also be allowed to build the associated processing and support facilities, including gravel roads and pipelines to the Trans Alaska Pipeline System.
Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland is so opposed to the project that she would not sign the record of decision, but passed it along to Deputy Secretary Tommy Beaudreau for the official signature.
Biden told reporters on Friday he’s taking millions of acres of the Beaufort Sea, closing off oil and gas drilling and blocking off the federal Arctic Ocean waters. It’s what one Biden official called a “firewall” to prevent any more leases in Alaska’s North Slope region, and it will be promulgated with new rules that affects half of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska — some 13 million acres in all that will be taken by the federal government to prevent oil from being developed in the 23.5-million-acre petroleum reserve.
Biden has been trying to mend fences with the furious environmental lobby, which is one of his biggest supporters. Among actions he took subsequent to the Willow decision was the announcement about the millions that would be regulated into non production. Also, shortly after the Willow announcement, Secretary of Interior Deb Haaland also took back land the department had traded to a Native corporation in Alaska so that a road could be constructed between King Cove and Cold Bay’s all-weather airport.
“I am banking on, we’ll find out, that the oil company is going to say, not that’s not going to be challenged, and they’re going to go with with three sites. And the energy that’s going to be produced they’re estimated to account to 1% — 1% of the total production of oil in the world,” Biden told reporters, trying to downplay the importance of the decision.
“And so I thought it was a good — the better gamble and a hell of a trade-off to have the Arctic Ocean and the Bering Sea and so many other places, off limits forever now,” he said.
The Alaska Policy Forum has published a reportshowing that for every four teachers in Alaska, there are five other staff members performing various other duties. Districts across the state average three teachers for every four other staff members.
The school districts with the highest number of teachers as a ratio to other staff include the Mat-Su Borough School District, which has about a 1:1 teacher-staff ratio. Teachers represent 49% of all district staff in the valley. Anchorage also was about 1:1.
The Tanana City School District has the lowest ratio of teachers to other staff, .35:1. For every teacher — and there are four of them — the district employees nearly three other staff members. The student-teacher ratio in Tanana is 8:1.
In only seven of Alaska’s 53 school districts do teachers represent 50% or more of the district’s staff: Alaska Gateway (69%), Aleutian Region (62%), Craig City (51%), Kenai Peninsula Borough (52%), Nome Public Schools (55%), Sitka (54%), and Yakutat (50%), the Alaska Policy Forum says.
By “other staff” the organization means administrators, principals, guidance counselors, librarians, instructional aides, and more. Alaska currently has about 129,000 students enrolled and over 7,200 teachers (full time equivalents), with a pupil-teacher ratio of about 18:1.
The report comes at a time when nationally, the employment in the nation’s schools has reached an all-time high, even as school enrollment lags in nearly every state.
On a per-student basis, schools employ more teachers and other staff than they’ve ever had.
For example, in 2018-19, the last full year before the Covid-19 pandemic hit, Virginia public schools employed just under 87,000 teachers. By 2020-21, the schools had employed about 75 more staff, about 0.1%, while school enrollment had declined by 2.9%. By 2022, Virginia schools had added even more staff, as student enrollment continued to dwindle, according to Chad Aldeman, policy director of the Edunomics Lab at Georgetown University.
Aldeman writes in The 74, an education blog, that school staffing is hitting an all-time high and at least 48 states and the District of Columbia were reviewed, and three-quarters had added staff the first full year of the pandemic, while only two states, North Dakota and South Dakota, and D.C. enrolled more students.
“As a result, schools in 46 out of 49 states effectively lowered their teacher-student ratios during the height of the pandemic,” Aldeman reports. The national student-teacher ratio is about 17:1.
An American woman athlete who has won 35 titles in cyclocross competitions says she is retiring due to biological men being allowed to compete in the women’s division.
Hannah Arensman shared her decision to retire in an amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court last week. The brief was on behalf of 67 women athletes, coaches, and parents from sports such as volleyball, disc golf, cycling, track, and more, relating to a case involving the state of West Virginia. The Mountain State is being sued by a transgender over the Save Women’s Sports Act that disallows a transgender’s participation in female athletic competitions.
Arensman decided to retire after finishing fourth place in a grueling December meet, in between a third-place transgender and a fifth-place transgender. The person who took third place was Austin Killips, who has also been accused by witnesses of roughing up Arensman three times during the December race. He has denied doing so, but others say he got physical as he tried to push Arensman off the course.
Cyclocross is a non-Olympic racing format that consists of many laps of a short course that may include pavement, trails, mud, grass, hills, gullies, and obstacles that require the rider to dismount and pack the bike to get around various obstructions.
Arensman said it had “become increasingly discouraging” to train as hard as she does only to lose to someone with an “unfair advantage,”
“I have decided to end my cycling career. At my last race at the recent UCI Cyclocross National Championships in the elite women’s category in December 2022, I came in 4th place, flanked on either side by male riders awarded 3rd and 5th places. My sister and family sobbed as they watched a man finish in front of me, having witnessed several physical interactions with him throughout the race,” she said.
“I feel for young girls learning to compete and who are growing up in a day when they no longer have a fair chance at being the new record holders and champions in cycling,” Arensman wrote in the filing. “I have felt deeply angered, disappointed, overlooked, and humiliated that the rule makers of women’s sports do not feel it is necessary to protect women’s sports to ensure fair competition for women anymore.”
The amicus brief argues that females are uniquely and adversely affected when they are forced to compete against males in sports, and that the psychological, tangible, and long-term harm suffered by females forced to compete against males is irreversible.
“Females are suffering real harm that threatens their right to basic equality and equal opportunity,” the women argue.
But the ACLU and the plaintiff, whose name is protected because he is a minor, say the boy is covered by Title IX, the 1972 law that people like the late Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska fought for in order to end discrimination against girls and women scholastic athletes. The federal government has been, through regulation, changing the definition of Title IX to include prohibition against gender identity and the Biden Administration intends to publish new rules in May that will protect transgender athletes at the expense of females.
According to the lawsuit filed by the transgender, girls are allowed to play on boys’ teams, but boys are not allowed to play on girls teams, which is not fair.
“So echoing language from Title IX’s implementing regulations, 34 C.F.R. § 106.41(b), the Sports Act reiterated that women’s and girls’ sports teams based on ‘competitive skill’ or ‘involv[ing] a contact sport’ should not be open to males, W. VA. CODE § 18-2-25d(c)(2). Instead, male students remain free to play on male or co-ed teams, while female students can play on all teams. Id. § 18-2-25d(c)(3). The Sports Act then drew an administrable line, defining ‘male’ and ‘female’ by looking to the student’s “reproductive biology and genetics at birth.” Id. § 18-2-25d(b),” the lawsuit says.
Defining male and female by biology violates the Equal Protection Clause and Title IX, argues B.P.J. and the ACLU. The district court granted B.P.J.’s request for a preliminary injunction.
In the amicus brief filed by women athletes last week, women runners in Alaska are mentioned as part of the documentation of how females are being bested by biological males in the female divisions:
“Roughly two years ago, the West Virginia Legislature passed H.B. 3293—the Sports Act—to ensure equal opportunities and fair play for all student athletes. In recent years biological males identifying as female have increasingly competed against and beaten biological females in women’s sports events across the country. High-school-girl sprinters in Connecticut, young women swimming in the Ivy League, teen volleyball players in Hawaii, young female runners in Alaska, and student athletes everywhere in between have found themselves falling behind or pushed aside for biologically male athletes,” the women say in support of the Save Women’s Sports Act.
Other groups have filed amicus briefs in this case.
One is from the Women’s Liberation Front (“WoLF”), a non-profit radical feminist organization dedicated to the liberation of women by ending male violence, protecting reproductive sovereignty, preserving woman-only spaces, and abolishing gender and sex discrimination.
“WoLF’s interest in this case stems from its interest in empowering and protecting the safety and privacy of women and girls and preserving women’s sex-based civil rights. Those rights are threatened when court decisions and agency policies embrace the vague concept of ‘gender identity’ in a manner that overrides statutory and Constitutional protections that are based explicitly on ‘sex.’ If, as a matter of law, ‘sex’ is no longer understood to be an immutable characteristic, but instead merely a subjective self-declared and mutable ‘identity’ – then the ability to protect women and girls from sex-based discrimination is greatly diminished,” the feminist group wrote.
“For the first time, the Supreme Court has an opportunity to protect fairness in women’s sports from today’s threats. It’s time for the Court to follow biological reality and ensure equal opportunities for female athletes, Alliance Defending Freedom said.
Tiffany Thomas’ Instagram post after winning the Randall’s Island Crit.
The increase in transgenders taking over women’s competitions was evidenced again last week, when transgender cyclist Tiffany Thomas, 47, won the Randall’s Island Crit (New York City) women’s division. Thomas started bike racing in 2018, when she was already in her 40s. Since then, Thomas has had at least 20 first-place finishes in women’s cycling divisions.
The international governing body for track and field sport says that biological males will not be allowed to compete against female athletes in the women’s division. World Athletics announced on Thursday that it will bar any competitor who had already gone through male puberty from the female competition categories.
The organization is breaking with high schools and colleges around the United States that are increasingly allowing boys and men to compete in the girls’ and women’s divisions.
The new ban against biological males in female competitions applies to all running distances and throwing events (javelin, discus), as a way to protect women’s sports. No such bans on women competing in men’s categories seem to be of concern at this time.
World Athletics president Sebastian Coe said, “the World Athletics Council has today taken the decisive action to protect the female category in our sport, and to do so by restricting the participation of transgender and DSD athletes.” DSD stands for differences of sex development, an extremely rare condition. Those DSD athletes will have to show a testosterone level below a certain threshold for a specified period of time.
In regard to transgender athletes, the governing body has agreed to exclude male-to-female transgender athletes who have been through male puberty from female World Rankings competition starting on March 31.
“World Athletics conducted a consultation period with various stakeholders in the first two months of this year, including Member Federations, the Global Athletics Coaches Academy and Athletes’ Commission, the IOC as well as representative transgender and human rights groups,” the statement from the group said.
“It became apparent that there was little support within the sport for the option that was first presented to stakeholders, which required transgender athletes to maintain their testosterone levels below 2.5nmol/L for 24 months to be eligible to compete internationally in the female category,” the organization said.
Last year, the international swimming governing body voted to restrict the participation of transgender athletes in women’s events.
FINA members voted 71.5% in favor of a policy that requires transgender swimmers to have completed their transition by age 12 to be able to compete. The vote was taken after collegiate swimmer Lia Thomas won an NCAA championship in the women’s division.
In Alaska, boys who are identifying as females have been allowed to compete in track and field competitions in the girls’ category. In Haines, a boy in 2016 placed third in the small schools’ girls’ 200-meter sprint, and fifth in the girls’ 100-meter race.
In 2022, a biological male student who identifies as a female enrolled in the girls track and field competition at a local Anchorage middle school.
In Washington State, boys who simply state that they are transgender now can compete against girls. In 2022, a sophomore runner who competed as a male in 2021 won first place in 2022 at a Puget Sound-area school cross country meet in the girls’ division.
Reporter Dori Monson reached out to the school district: “They say they are simply following the rules set forth by the Washington Interscholastic Athletic Association (WIAA) – the governing body for high school athletics and activities in this state. Boys can complete as girls if boys say they are girls. It’s that simple.”
But there has been a significant amount of resistance among high school parents to allowing the trend to continue.
Even former Alaska Rep. Adam Wool, a hardline Democrat and progressive on almost every issue, says admits just science that boys run faster than girls: “My daughter is the fastest runner on her girls high school XC track team. If she were on the boys team she’d be in the middle of the pack. Boys run faster than girls, that’s a scientific fact,” the progressive Fairbanksan wrote on Twitter.
He also pointed out, “The sprinter Allyson Felix won the most world championship medals in history. Her lifetime best in the 400 meters was 49.26 seconds; in 2018, 275 high school boys ran faster.”
Senate Bill 140, the Even Playing Field Act, was sponsored by Sen. Shelley Hughes and co-sponsored by Sen. Mike Shower and Lora Reinbold, to protect the girls’ division from the boys’ unfair advantage. The bill died in committee in the Alaska Senate in the Education Committee, chaired by now-former Sen. Roger Holland.
The Alaska State Board of Education this year passed a resolution to protect girls in sports but the resolution does not have the force of law. It simply asks school districts to pass rules prohibiting the discrimination of girls in sports.
House Republicans on Friday passed House Resolution 5, the “Parents Bill of Rights,” on a vote of 213-208.
Alaska Rep. Mary Peltola voted against the measure at every opportunity, along with the rest of House Democrats. She stated on the record that children need privacy from their parents and that schools should keep information from parents so that children are “safe at school.”
The bill was written “to ensure the rights of parents are honored and protected in the Nation’s public schools,” according to House Resolution 5. It arose after numerous reports from every state of the union about gender ideology being taught and soft porn being made available to young children in school.
The bill requires schools to publish what the curriculum is, so that parents can see if topics such as critical race theory (racial bias is inherent in western society because the society was primarily designed for and implemented by white people), critical gender theory (people are not born with gender but learn it and transsexuals should undergo hormonal treatment and sex reassignment surgery in order to make his/her body conform with his/her perceived gender identity), or other controversial topics are being taught.
The bill also requires schools to get permission from parents before referring to their children by an alternative, secret gender pronoun, such as he/him, ze/zir, xe/xer, she/her, they/them, sie/hir, or any of the other pronouns that that gender ideologues are promoting to younger and younger children. Schools would not be allowed to re-gender a child or refer to a child by a different name than the one given to the child by the parent.
The bill also says that children must use the locker room or bathroom of the gender with which they were conceived and born. In other words, schools that receive federal funding would not be able to allow boys who are identifying as girls to use these facilities.
Schools would also be required to give parents the reading lists that are being given to the students and be transparent about what books are being offered in classrooms and school libraries. The legislation, which now goes to the Senate, would boost parents’ right to speak out at school board meetings.
In recent months, the Anchorage School Board has prevented a parent from reading material into the record that is from books that are available to elementary school through high school students. When parent Jay MacDonald tried to read from the children’s training-porn book “Let’s Talk About It,” he was shut down by the school board, even though it is a title that was, at one point, available to children.
According to the bill, “Parents have a First Amendment right to express their opinions on decisions made by State and local education leaders.” This is already inherent in the U.S. Constitution, but the bill sponsors felt it was important to specify, since so many parents re being prevented from protesting actions of their school leaders.
In Anchorage and other communities, some students are re-identifying as an alternative gender at school and are being referred to by secret names that parents are not told. This practice would be illegal under the bill.
Democrats have raged over the bill, which will need to pass the Senate and be signed into law by the president, an unlikely occurrence.
“Our children need urgent and aggressive educational solutions,” said U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, in a floor speech. “When we talk about progressive values, I can say what my progressive value is, and that is freedom over fascism.”
Over 350 Anchorage residents came out to take a stand against Assemblyman Felix Rivera’s proposed homeless shelter in a midtown Anchorage neighborhood. Only one person spoke in favor of it.
The public spent their Friday night at the Arctic Recreation Center, attending a town hall meeting called by Mayor Dave Bronson, and said that their neighborhoods and children living there were not ready to take on the assault of a homeless industrial complex envisioned by Rivera.
Rivera has called the pushback against his homeless plan “reactionary.”
Rivera, who is running for reelection for the Anchorage Assembly’s midtown seat, is the chair of the Assembly’s homelessness committee and has advanced the idea of buying the Arctic Recreation Center from a church. The gymnasium is south of Tudor Road and West of C Street.
Rivera’s idea has been to permanently shelter up to 200 people there, while also purchasing nine adjacent acres and building low-income housing. The shelter itself would be “low barrier,” which means it would have the least amount of standards of any shelter in town, to take the most aggressively difficult vagrants who won’t adhere to shelter rules elsewhere.
Currently those individuals have shelter at the Sullivan Arena, where they sleep on cots in an area that once was a venue for sports and concerts.
The initial cost of purchasing the Arctic Recreation Center would hit taxpayers with a $13 million bill, but that would just be the beginning of the costs. Anchorage is spending tens of millions on homelessness issues each year.
Both Rivera, who delivers for Door Dash to augment his salary on the Assembly, and Assemblywoman Meg Zaletel, who has a lavishly paid day job of running the Anchorage Coalition to End Homelessness, attended the town hall.
Rivera and Zaletel have been leading the opposition to the mayor’s solution, which had included a “navigation center” at Elmore and Tudor Roads, where people could start their journey back to sobriety, work, and stable housing.
Rivera and Zaletel blocked the mayor’s navigation center effort, even after approving it initially. Now, they and their comrades on the Assembly will not authorize the pay for the site work done for the navigation center, stiffing the contractor who did the dirt work, while attempting to spend $13 million to buy a building near a residential neighborhood that apparently opposes their efforts.
Felix Rivera, promoter of the Arctic Rec. Center, sits and listens to the public who is opposed to it.
Rivera, who started his political life working for former Mayor Ethan Berkowitz, has said he wants to relaunch the homeless plans with a clean slate. He has begun to realize the extent of the opposition to his plans for the Arctic Recreation Center, as he has seen the pushback at the same time he is up for reelection. Travis Szantohas challenged him for the midtown seat.
Already, the radical Assembly has purchased the Golden Lion hotel at 36th Avenue and Seward Highway for $9 million for a drug rehab homeless center, but it sits vacant because the neighborhood, a nearby Jewish preschool, and Mayor Dave Bronson don’t think it is a good site to treat drug addicts.
Last week, Rivera called the pushback against the Arctic Recreation Center a “reactionary response.”
“This division and reactionary response are impeding my laser-focused work to stand up a shelter by November, before winter arrives,” Rivera said in a statement.
Rivera and the Assembly majority, which opposes nearly everything proposed by the mayor, blocked the mayor’s efforts to get a navigation center stood up before winter hit. That disagreement is still ongoing, as the Assembly is now refusing to pay the contractor who did the site preparation work for the navigation center.
Rivera says now he wants to start over. He will present a new “clean slate” proposal to the Assembly for consideration at a work session on March 31, 2023. The meeting is titled, “Discussion on Permanent Year-Round Low-Barrier Shelter” and will be held from 11 am to 12:30 pm at the Assembly Chambers in the Loussac Library, at 36th Avenue and Denali Street.
Before ConocoPhillips has even had a chance to get out from under the latest environmental lawsuit over the Willow Project, the Alaska Senate has a plan to tax it at a new level.
SB 114 changes oil production tax calculations, reduces the per-barrel tax credit, closes a loophole that now benefits Hilcorp, and ring fences the Willow Project, limiting the developer’s ability to deduct its capital expenditures against its production tax from other fields.
That’s a big deal, according to those in the business. In addition, there may be other “Easter eggs” in the bill, which also is going to be a big shift for Hilcorp.
It was drafted by oil company foe Sen. Bill Wielechowski, and it has no fiscal note. It was also not sent to Senate Resources, which would have put Sen. Cathy Giessel in an untenable position for her next reelection campaign. Giessel, in the past, has not favored unreasonable oil taxes.
The bill may also be more about pushing the House to not go for a full Permanent Fund dividend. There is also a possibility that Wielechowski did not draft the bill in the manner his colleagues had requested.
ConocoPhillips has not made its investment decision yet on Willow. It first has to get through what it hopes will be the final environmental lawsuit.
Recently, regional banks in the United States and one major international bank have either collapsed or, in crisis, been rescued by larger banks, due to liquidity issues.
Given these financial headwinds, it is a great time to assess the financial viability of the Municipality of Anchorage as voters decide how to vote on the many bonding propositions on the ballot.
InNovember 2022, Anchorage had its bond rating (credit score) downgraded by Fitch, citing the Municipality’s depleted cash reserve levels, which were not adequate to cover 10% of the Muni’s current year expenditures in its general fund.
That means the Muni was required to have about one month’s annual expenses in cash in order to maintain its rating. It did not.
Later, Fitchupdatedits rating notes after finding the Muni could borrow up to $640 million in cash. Basically it found that the Muni’s liquidity issues were solved because the Muni had a “credit card” with a $640 million limit.
This is not the place of financial strength one would hope for and not how we the voters run our personal finances. Financial advisors suggest families have three to six months of cash on hand, yet the Municipality of Anchorage has less than a month.
Contrast that with the MatSu Borough. In 2022, Fitch maintained the Borough’s bond rating, although the Borough was not seeking to borrow any money, and cited the strong cash reserve position for the rating. The MatSu Borough has roughly two month’s annual operating expenses and one year of its annual debt service on hand.
The Muni and the MatSu Borough also differ what type of capital projects they take on and how they pay for them. For example, the Muni is seeking in this current election cycle to bond to repair roofs, replace worn out equipment, or rehabilitate a trail, essentially bonding for maintenance, a dubious financial position to be in.
Contrast this with MatSu Borough paying $25 million for a new school this year — with cash. Two years ago, MatSu voters approved a roads package — adding roads, not repairing them — again the Borough paid cash. MatSu has increased its school enrollment by 64% in the last 10 years, yet is paying for schools with cash, rather than borrowing.
In addition, the cost of borrowing has increased. The average loan in 2020 was 3.7%, versus the current 7%. The Fed just bumped rates a quarter point this week. Any new bonds (debt) added to the Muni would cost about 1.5 times what that same liability would have cost per month in 2020. Similarly, short-term lending to cover monthly expenses, or the $640 million in borrowable cash, also will increase the Muni’s monthly expenses.
Given the problem the Muni has with low cash reserves and the substantially increased costs of bonding, it’s not the time to add more debt. Let’s learn lessons from the bank failures and the MatSu’s example of being financially prudent in regards to taking on additional debt. It’s not the right time to add more debt to the Muni monthly expenses, rather, we should wait until the Muni replenishes its cash reserves before taking on any more debt in the short term.
Rob Yundt, MatSu Borough Assemblyman, and Jodi Taylor, Anchorage resident, are each life-long Alaskans, business owners, and (by happy coincidence) they both have six kids.
The Alaska constitution states “§ 7. Dedicated Funds. The proceeds of any state tax or license shall not be dedicated to any special purpose, except as provided in section 15 of this article or when required by the federal government for state participation in federal programs. This provision shall not prohibit the continuance of any dedication for special purposes existing upon the date of ratification of this section by the people of Alaska. [Amended 1976]”
Translating that: The Alaska Constitution forbids dedicated funds except if that dedication was in existence prior to statehood or is passed by the majority of the voters. This reference does not allow the judiciary to grant judgment in opposition to the Alaska Constitution.
The Constitution is being ignored. The agencies have taken the lead in establishing unconstitutional dedicated funds.
Here’s a partial list of Agencies and funds that hold on to money in excess of appropriations and therefore create their own Dedicated Fund:
Unrestricted and restricted net worth $1,310 Billion Alaska Industrial and Development Authority, AIDEA
Unrestricted and restricted net worth $1,374 Billion Alaska Energy Administration, AEA
Unrestricted General and minor funds (GeFonsi) $3,950 billion
Unrestricted and restricted net worth Constitutional Budget Reserve $1.07 Billion
Unrestricted and unrestricted net worth $1,575 billion, Alaska Housing Finance Corp, AHFC
Unrestricted balance of Earnings Reserve Account of the Alaska Permanent Fund $3.8 Billion
TOTAL: $12,097 BILLION
Some of the funds, notably AEA, cover long held and politically powerful sponsors. Think of the Power Cost Equalization Fund. Amazingly, the Alaska Supreme Court declared it a dedicated fund without the constitutional requirements. When our own Alaska Supreme Court violates the law in a finding for their version of the common good, rather than finding for the express will of the people, our constitution no longer serves as the protector of the people’s will.
If you want further proof of the problem, just look at the Alaska Legislature’s money grab called the “Percentage of Market Value.” It’s quite simply a raid on the Alaska Permanent Fund. It’s not a partisan issue with Democrats and Independents versus Republicans fighting each other. Instead, it is the issue of the next decade since it dictates spending of the principle of the Alaska Permanent Fund when earnings are insufficient to handle the appropriation. If you are feeling constitutionally insecure, you have that right.
Keep in mind that the Legislature has $12 billion in the bank, enough to solve each and every Alaska problem. Even with the $12 billion, some members of the Senate and the House are proposing an income tax as part of their fiscal plan for Alaska. Their idea of a fiscal plan is to swipe your Permanent Fund Dividend and impose an income tax. Raising taxes on Alaskans or stealing our Permanent Fund dividend should not be the foundation of anyone’s fiscal plan. Permanent Fund earnings do not justify increases in operation expenses nor additional public funding for education, land management and Medicaid and other budgetary purposes.
No new taxes should be passed while the unconstitutional funds exist. The solution is simple, as Gov. Mike Dunleavy has demonstrated. Sweep excess money from agencies into the General Fund and then observe the constitution on dedicated funds.
In 2023, Legislators have a choice: Bring to the people at the next election a ballot proposition that establishes dedicated funds for housing, economic development, Permanent Fund earnings or stop treating them as dedicated funds. If those unconstitutional funds go down at the public vote, enforce sweeping of the funds and appropriating them as the needs arise. Do not, however, spread the obvious untruth that we’re broke. We’re not. Do not impose new taxes on Alaskans when we have $12 billion in the bank.
Jim Crawford is the former President of Permanent Fund Defenders, pfdak.com, an Alaska based educational nonprofit corporation. Jim is a third generation, lifelong Alaskan who co-chaired the Alaskans Just Say No campaign to stop the raid on the Permanent Fund in 1999. He also served Gov. Jay Hammond as a member of the Investment Advisory which formed the investment and corporate strategy of the Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation in 1975.
