Yesterday we posted a commentary focusing on how to implement a portion of Governor Hammond’s still highly relevant vision for the Permanent Fund. See, Fully implementing Governor Hammond’s 50/50 plan (or, how to find another $1.5 billion in revenue without PFD cuts and taxes), https://goo.gl/7Ct8B5.
That piece arose out of some work we have been doing overall on the Permanent Fund in preparation for taking a more active role this upcoming legislative session on fiscal matters as part of the Alaskans for Sustainable Budgets effort.
Today we spoke to the Alaska Support Industry Alliance “Emerging Leaders” cohort on that and some additional topics related to the Permanent Fund and PFD. The slide deck is above and also available at https://goo.gl/E7mD1L.
Our concluding observations were these:
- The earnings stream from the PF is not being used to its maximum potential to help solve the fiscal crisis
— Hammond: “The other half of the earnings could be used for essential government services.” It’s time to implement that vision.
- How we calculate Hammond’s “other half” is, literally, a billion dollar (annually) issue
- Cutting the PFD:
— Makes Alaska a much more government-centered economy (more like Angola than Texas), and
— Has a large (ISER: the “largest” of all options) adverse impact on the overall Alaska economy
The slidedeck explains how we arrive at those.
Thoughts on Alaska Oil & Gas 