In June of this year, at the end of what became the next to last extension of the legislature’s 2016 session, the House Finance Committee voted on whether to advance SB 128 to the floor.
That bill, which already had passed the Senate, proposed permanently to cut (what supporters refer to euphemistically as “restructure”) the Permanent Fund Dividend (PFD).
By that point the Alaska economy already was in an economic recession. And the legislature already had been advised by the University of Alaska-Anchorage’s Institute of Social and Economic Research (ISER) — the state’s best economic think tank — that cutting the PFD was the “most regressive” and would have the “largest adverse impact on the [overall Alaska] economy” of all the state’s fiscal options. Short-Run Economic Impacts of Alaska Fiscal Options, https://goo.gl/ZxR1Hw at A-12, A- 15 (March 2016). Continue reading
As someone who cares deeply about Alaska’s fiscal and economic condition, from time to time I have gone the extra mile to support candidates that I think, if elected, can be positive difference-makers in developing state fiscal policy.
Late last week we wrote a column analyzing the state of Alaska’s overall economy and the effect that Governor Walker’s PFD cut was having on it (“Yes, Alaska is now formally in a recession and Bill Walker singlehandedly is making it much worse …,” 
Thoughts on Alaska Oil & Gas 
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