Category Archives: Immediate Reactions

Publisher’s Note:  As readers of these pages may recall Alaskans for Sustainable Budgets also maintains a separate blog providing news & commentary on Alaska fiscal and economic policy on national website Medium.  The following piece appeared first on that website.  ______________________________

Yesterday in response to a question during the Fairbanks presentation of the Alaska Senate Majority’s Fiscal Plan Senator Click Bishop said that he had started talking to colleagues about developing an “economic stimulus plan” of various capital projects. The question and response begins at about 54:00 of the following video. Fortunately, I was sitting out of the frame, so my resulting facepalm is not recorded for posterity.

In many ways, Sen. Bishop’s response tells you all you ever need to know about why the Alaska economy is in the shape it is, and why it will become worse if either the current Alaska Senate Majority or Alaska House Majority Coalition fiscal plans are enacted.

Alaska already has what many economists view as an outstanding and long term “economic stimulus plan.” It’s the Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend (PFD). According to a March 2016 analysis by the University of Alaska-Anchorage Institute of Social and Economic Research (ISER), each $1 distributed as a PFD in Alaska produces about $1.40 in income in the overall Alaska economy. As “stimulus” packages go that’s an extremely good bang for the buck.

As significantly, according to the March 2016 and subsequent ISER studies the PFD also materially reduces state poverty levels and helps reduce income disparity, both also very important economic objectives.

But that program is troublesome to some because it puts the dollars — and economic decisions — in the hands of individual Alaskans, rather than government. So, rather than do whatever it takes to maintain the program during an increasingly serious economic recession, the majority caucuses in both bodies are currently proposing to curtail it severely and move roughly half of the dollars — and resulting control over how those dollars are spent — over to government, substituting instead things like Senator Bishop’s “economic stimulus plan” to help drive the economy. Continue reading →

Source:  Institute of Social & Economic Research, “Short-run economic impacts of Alaska Fiscal Options” at III -9.

Publisher’s Note:  As readers of these pages may recall Alaskans for Sustainable Budgets also maintains a separate blog providing news & commentary on Alaska fiscal and economic policy on national website Medium.  The following piece appeared first on that website.     ______________________________

Let’s be clear on this to start. We oppose state income taxes.

We oppose them for the same reason that others will assert as well, because of the adverse effect on the Alaska economy and families.

But let’s also be clear about something else, if that is your reason for opposing an income tax, then you should have opposed the PFD cut as well. Why? Because, according to ISER’s March and October 2016 studies, cutting the PFD has a larger adverse impact on overall Alaska income and jobs — the Alaska economy and families — than an income tax. Continue reading →

As we mentioned in a post last week we have started a radio and social media campaign focused on urging legislators to retain the Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend as it currently is. The ad above is the second in the series (the first is here). The audio is the radio campaign ad.

The second ad is introduced in our social media campaign this way:

We believe the full PFD should stay in the pockets of Alaskans rather than be used by government to help fund special interests. If you agree, contact your legislator by email, text, by posting on Facebook or Twitter with one simple message — tell them you want them to KEEP THE PFD AS IT IS (to help get you started, a draft of an email and contact information for members of the Senate and House is available here: https://goo.gl/BT2BAz). Then, repost this video so that your friends do the same. For continuing updates and commentary on Alaska’s fiscal situation, like, follow and engage with us at Alaskans for Sustainable Budgets. #KeepThePFD

As we have discussed often on these pages, we believe retaining the PFD as it is, is an important part of developing a long term, sustainable Alaska budget and overall economy.  If you agree, please support the effort in the ways we describe in our social media post above.

As the next step in our efforts, yesterday we started a radio and social media campaign focused on urging legislators to retain the Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend as it currently is.  The ad above is the first in the series. The audio is the radio campaign ad.

The social media campaign is introduced by this post:

We believe the full PFD should stay in the pockets of Alaskans rather than be used by government to help fund special interests. If you agree, contact your legislator by email, text, by posting on Facebook or Twitter and tell them you want them to #KeepThePFD. Their contact information can be found at http://akleg.gov. Then, repost this video so that your friends do the same. For continuing updates and commentary on Alaska’s fiscal situation, like, follow and engage with us at Alaskans for Sustainable Budgets.

We are taking this step because, for the reasons we have explained on these pages, we believe strongly that the Alaska legislature is headed in the wrong direction on this issue and are willing to put our money where our mouth is.