August 26, 2025 • 54 mins
Welcome to The Weekly Top 3 — our look at the top 3 things on our mind here at Alaskans for Sustainable Budgets — for the week of August 25, 2025.
This week, our top 3 issues are these: 1) we discuss some recent comments by Speaker Edgmon about the economic strains being felt by Alaska’s coastal communities and explain why, in certain real respects, they are being self-inflicted by the Legislature (2:28); 2) we start a new, occasional series by explaining the “rest of the story” surrounding some recent campaign comments by Adam Crum and Tom Begich (20:02); 3) we remember Stephen Haycox and the lessons about Alaska we learned from him and will continue to learn as we and others continue to read the rich legacy that he has left with us (33:01); and finally, in some brief comments at the end, we give a shout out to Sen. Mike Cronk for some comments he made at this week’s opening meeting of the Education Task Force (47:42).
The Weekly Top 3 is a regular weekly segment on The Michael Dukes Show. The Show broadcasts on Facebook and YouTubeLive as well as via streaming audio from the Show’s website weekdays from 6–8am. We join Michael weekly in the first hour of Tuesday’s show, from 6:25–7am, for a discussion between the two of us about our three issues.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Hi, this is Brad Keithley, managing Director of
Alaskans for Sustainable Budgets.
Welcome to the weekly top threethe top three things on our
mind here at Alaskans forSustainable Budgets for the week
of August 25th 2025.
The weekly top three is aregular segment on the Michael
Dukes Show.
The show broadcasts on bothFacebook Live and YouTube Live
(00:32):
as well as via streaming audiofrom the show's website.
Weekdays from 6 to 8 am.
I join Michael weekly in thefirst hour of Tuesday's show
from 6.10 to 7 am for adiscussion between the two of us
about our three issues.
We post the podcast of ourdiscussion following the show on
the Alaskans for SustainableBudgets Facebook, youtube,
(00:55):
soundcloud, spotify and Substackpages.
Also on the Alaskans forSustainable Budgets website, as
well as the projects page onnational blog site mediumcom.
You can find past episodes ofthe weekly top three also at the
same locations.
Keep in mind that, in additionto these podcasts during the
(01:15):
week, you can also follow andparticipate in the discussion
with us of these and otherissues affecting Alaska's fiscal
and economic condition byfollowing us on the Alaskans for
Sustainable Budgets Facebookpage and through our posts on
Twitter.
This week, our top three issuesare these First, we discuss some
recent comments by SpeakerEdgeman about the economic
(01:39):
strains being felt by Alaska'scoastal communities and explain
why, in certain real respects,they have been self-inflicted.
Second, we start a newoccasional series by explaining
the rest of the storysurrounding some recent campaign
comments by Adam Crum and TomBegich.
Third, we remember StephenHaycox and the lessons we
(02:03):
learned from him about Alaska,and we'll continue to learn as
we and others continue to readthe rich legacy that he left
behind with us.
And finally, in some briefclosing comments, we give a
shout out to Senator Mike Kronkfor some comments he made at
this week's opening meeting ofthe Education Task Force.
(02:24):
And now let's join Michael.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
You've got a lot of stuff to unpack with us today,
brad.
Today we're going to startthings off with what you're
calling the big self-inflictedwound, and this has to do with a
piece that is reporting onSpeaker Bryce Edgman, who he's
he's warning that boy, thingsare just so tough and it's so
(02:50):
bad, you know, and, of course,never acknowledging the fact
that it was the actions of thelegislature that has contributed
to where we're at right now.
So give me, give me the rundownhere here.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
So there's an article in Alaska Public Media this
past week, the headline of whichis House Speaker Edgman warns
of deepening strains in Alaskacoastal communities, and it
reports on remarks that Brycegave during a conference focused
on Alaska coastal communitiesand his discussion of, or his
talk about, how times areworsening.
Economic times are worseningout in those communities, that
(03:32):
prices are rising, airfares arerising, fish revenues are
falling and it's just havingthis tightening vice on the
coastal communities.
And I sat there reading thisarticle and I just kept going
okay, okay, okay.
All this stuff is is bad.
(03:52):
They need more revenue, theyneed more personal revenue out
in out in the coastalcommunities.
But who's been taking thatrevenue away?
Who's been diverting a bigchunk of money that comes into
the coastal communities away?
Oh, it's been the legislatureand Bryce.
So as I read through this andstarted to understand the points
(04:19):
he was making and understandthe problems he was addressing,
understand the problems he wasaddressing, it started to dawn
on me that some of this, atleast, is a self-inflicted wound
by the legislature, by theregion's own legislative
delegation, to take money away.
I posted this and made thatcomment on one of our outlets,
(04:40):
the Alaskans for SustainableBudgets group page, facebook
group page and Willie Keppel, alistener, made the comment yeah,
he's diverted $100 million outof just Lyman Hoffman's Senate
district the two halves that areBryce's state representative
(05:02):
district and Nellie Jimmy'sstate district that he's
diverted $100 million out ofthat district through PFD cuts.
It wouldn't be that much.
It'd be you'd have to.
I mean, if you don't use thePFD cuts to fund government, you
have to do something to fundgovernment.
A portion of it would come fromincreased oil revenues, a
(05:24):
portion would come from betterpermanent fund returns and thus
a bigger POMV draw.
But a portion of it would haveto come from Alaskans and just
like it's coming now fromAlaskans through PFD cuts, a
portion of it would have to comein another fashion from
Alaskans, which would reduce the$100 million a little bit.
But it's a huge chunk of moneythat's being taken out of those
(05:48):
communities by Bryce himself,bryce and Lyman themselves
through using PFD cuts asopposed to other revenue
measures that could be used toraise the money.
The thing that really got me wasthe last paragraph of this
article.
It says the legislature haslimited power for many of these
(06:10):
challenges, which fall tofederal policy and private
industry.
Still, edgeman says the statecan play a role, from boosting
school budgets to pushing forstronger seafood marketing and
supporting rural transportationnetworks.
His solution and this is afundamental problem not only
with Bryce and Lyman but thelegislature itself they think
(06:33):
the solution is tied up inspending more state money to
effectively try to lower costs,substitute state money for costs
that are being incurred out inthe regions.
But what they don't focus on isthe revenue side.
Very few in the legislaturefocus on the revenue side of
(06:55):
anything but they don't focus onthe revenue side and don't
focus on what they're doing onthe revenue side.
And by funding this additionalspending to try to moderate
costs indirectly, try tomoderate costs out in the region
, they're whacking Alaskafamilies in the region in the
(07:16):
face by taking revenue out oftheir pockets, diverting revenue
out of their pockets to fundthose costs.
I wish that Bryce and otherswould focus on the revenue side
and say what's a better revenuesystem than the revenue system
we're using now that takes moneydirectly from middle and lower
(07:36):
income Alaska families, the verythe core of the constituency
that he and Lyman and Nelliehave out in those districts, out
in that region?
What's a better revenue systemto raise the revenue we say we
need, or maybe not raise therevenue at all, maybe just cut
spending.
But what's a better system?
Whatever revenue we need, setaside the spending cuts that
(07:57):
need to be made, but whateverrevenue we need, what's a better
revenue system for our regionthan the revenue system we're
using now, which is PFD cuts?
I wish they would take the timeto think through that and if
they did, they would realizethere are much better revenue
systems that would help theregion and so, instead of
(08:20):
talking about all of theproblems that are there because
the costs are rising, they couldhelp to ameliorate that by
helping raise revenue, by usinga different revenue system to
raise the revenue that wouldleave more in the pockets of
Alaska families in the region.
It's a self-defeating.
The mechanism that they andothers in the legislature have
(08:42):
set up is a self-defeatingmechanism that is a
self-inflicted wound on thatregion, particularly the rural
regions of Alaska.
It's a self-inflicted wound onthose regions by taking out the
revenue source that is mostimportant to those regions,
taxing the revenue source thatis most important to those
(09:05):
regions, and it's just.
I mean it's whenever you seeone of these articles or you see
one of Bryce's speeches or yousee one of the comments.
It's just the absence ofunderstanding that that really
strikes home.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Well, and I think what you're looking at is this
is this is the overall feel for,uh, you know, uh, this is a
snapshot into the mindset of thelegislators.
I mean, they're talking abouthow these areas are struggling
and the local economies areburdened, and and, etc.
Etc.
But the answer is obviously notmaking sure that the economies
(09:40):
in those areas are doing well ontheir own, and not what people
could be, you know, doing withtheir own monies or taking care
of their selves, taking care ofthemselves.
This is, like you said.
It's all about the governmentspend.
The state can play a roleboosting school budgets, pushing
for stronger seafood marketing,doing all this is all about.
(10:03):
They know better than you howthat money should be spent.
Not a word about the hundredsof you know, tens of millions of
dollars that have been takenout of the private economy in
terms of the PFD cut, and maybethose people could take care of
themselves in some ways byhaving that money.
It is a snapshot into themindset of we know better than
you how to do this and youshould just let us have free
(10:26):
reign, essentially to go dothose things yeah and and they
think yeah and they think weknow I mean we can boost, we can
boost school funding.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
well, okay, that helps those who are tied to that
.
That helps maybe some those whoare tied to the school economy
right In the communities andthat's a segment of the
communities, right but itdoesn't put money in the pockets
of the entire community.
I mean somebody who's not tiedto the school economy, which
would be a fairly significantsegment of the economy out there
(10:59):
not tied to the school economy.
It doesn't help them at all.
What you've done is you'vetaken money out of their pocket,
out of the pockets of thosefamilies, to put money in the
pockets of the fortunate few whoare tied to the school economy.
It's selective benefits thatthey're trying to create, to
(11:20):
create these constituencies thatare thankful to them or
dependent on them, at theexpense of the broad scale
families, the middle and lowerincome Alaska families in those
regions that are subsidizing theother segment of the economy
out there by losing money orhaving money diverted out of
their pockets to benefit thosefew.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
You see, it's a good start, Brad, because if we do
that and take the money out andeffect and help those people who
are, you know, it's going toentice more people to become
part of the government economy,and so therefore, pretty soon
everybody will be dependent onthe government economy, and so
then they can true I mean,really, maybe that's not in
their mind what the articulatedgoal, but I think,
(12:03):
subconsciously, that's what theywant.
They want everybody to bedependent on, you know, the
government largesse in one formor another, whether it's through
the school industry or thepublic safety, or, you know,
education, or you know you fillin the blank with whatever
public industry is in theseareas, and they want it to be
this cyclic.
You know money flows in andmoney flows out, because we're
(12:25):
all dependent on the.
You know that's ultimately, Ithink, what they're looking for.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
Yeah, it's sort of also the Reagan trickle-down
theory, right, if we give moneyto the schools and people tied
to the school economy have money, then it will trickle down to
the rest of the region.
I mean that trickle-down theoryhas never really worked.
It doesn't work at the federallevel with income tax.
(12:51):
It doesn't really work at thestate level with Bryce and
Lyman's state-funded economy outthere.
You know we're talking about asignificant amount of money.
I mean, we talk about the PFDin terms of the individual PFD,
but how we really ought to talkabout it is in terms of the
household impact.
(13:11):
And so that $3,000 cut thatWillie talks about, or maybe the
$2,500 cut after you take intoaccount the alternative funding
that you'd have to come up without the alternative funding that
you'd have to come up with,that's, you know, $7,500 to a
family of three is $10,000 to afamily of four cash in their
(13:32):
pockets in those in thoseregional economies and that's,
you know, in those regionaleconomies that's a lot of cash,
that's a lot of impact andyou're putting it in.
You're putting it in everyhousehold out there, it in every
(13:53):
household out there.
So it would be useful, I think,if Bryce and others would think
about these issues not only inhow can I spend more money to
help my region.
It's how can I help my regionhang on to more money, hang on
to more revenue in terms ofchanging the way in which the
state is raising the revenuethrough the most regressive,
(14:13):
using the most regressive taxsystem ever proposed.
According to ICER economistMatt Berman, if you change that,
if you use a more broad-based,if you use the fair share from
the oil industry that we'vetalked about, if you get more
from the POMV draw by gettingbetter earnings with the
(14:36):
permanent fund, if you changethe revenue side and leave that
money in the pockets of Alaskafamilies out in that region,
you're going to be a lot betteroff pockets of Alaska families
out in that region, you're goingto be a lot better off.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
Well, this is the continual, as you said,
self-inflicted wound.
I mean you're pointing to thisone here.
We've pointed to the wholecrisis with a permanent fund by
moving money out of the ERA, andyou know it's like a continual.
We're self-inflicting our owncrises to then justify the
actions of what we're doing downthe road.
And that's, I think, again ahabit that we've got going on in
this legislature as well.
Donna wins the internet today,hashtag Brad explaining
(15:14):
socialism, because that'sexactly what we've got going on
in this.
You know, we have the mostsocialistic constitution in the
state of Alaska.
We all own it collectively andeverything else.
And of course, that wassomething that Hammond talked
about.
He was trying to do.
He was trying to, you know, hewas trying to get the resource
(15:37):
monies into the hands ofAlaskans.
He said, you know, explained itas one of the most capitalistic
things he could do, trying toget people engaged in it.
And of course, the legislatureseems to be doing everything in
its power to reverse that, sothat the money all flows to
government and then they controland decide where the money goes
.
And that's why we're, you know,that's why we're facing some of
(15:59):
the challenges that we havetoday, and it's why we have the
same problems today that we had20 years ago, if not worse,
right, if not worse because now,at least the striking at the
permanent fund corpus itself iswithin sight.
They can actually see if theyhave a plan that's articulated
and ready to go, brad.
(16:21):
But your thoughts on that?
Speaker 1 (16:23):
Well, I just think it's.
We don't stop and sit there andthink about both the revenue
the family revenue side and thecost side the family cost side.
All the legislature seems to bedoing is thinking about the
(16:43):
cost side.
And how can we, the legislature, substitute money to bring
those costs down?
How could we bring airplanetickets down, the cost of
airplane tickets down?
How could we bring airplanetickets down?
How, the cost of airplanetickets down?
How could we bring the cost ofhousing down?
How can we bring, you know,this or that down by spending
money?
They're not focusing on wherethat money's coming from, and
it's just it's, you know it's.
(17:05):
It's you're trying to make.
You're trying to make this isthe analogy that pops into my
head.
You're trying to make amountain over here.
You're trying to make this theanalogy that pops into my head.
You're trying to make amountain over here.
You're trying to, you know,build up a bunch of dirt and
create a mountain of of statesupport, but you're doing it at
the expense of digging this holeon the other side.
That's, that's coming out ofthe expense, coming out of the
(17:26):
pockets of alaska families,middle and lower alaska families
, the core of your constituency,any constituency, constituency
in the state.
80% of the of the entire stateis middle and lower income
Alaska families.
So you're doing it, you're,you're building up this mountain
and and you're and you're goingto, you know, pay tribute to
the mountain and say all thegood things I did by building
this mountain of of statesupport, but you've done it at
(17:48):
the expense of digging this bighole in the.
Don't look at the hole.
Don't look at the hole.
Look at the mountain In the, inthe pockets of, in the pockets
of Alaska families.
And it's, it's just, I mean,it's a, it's, you're.
Yes, the people who get toclimb the mountain, the people
who get to sit on the mountain,the people who are part of the
mountain, yes, they benefitGreat no-transcript thing.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
We're focusing on the one aspect of it.
Um and again, this goes back toand I think that that that
paragraph at the end of thearticle, as you point out,
summates the whole thing exactly.
You know, the state can play arole, says Edgman.
We have limited powers for manyof these challenges, although
(19:01):
they're the cause of many ofthese challenges.
I mean, you know, through theiractions.
But we can play a role byboosting school budgets and
pushing for stronger seafoodmarketing and supporting rural
transportation all having to dowith government spend.
Nothing about, you know,bolstering the private economy
and getting that rolling on itsown to help so people can help
(19:22):
themselves.
They need to look to governmentfor every aspect instead of
letting them help themselves orhelping them to help themselves.
You know it's the teach a manto fish and or giving a man a
fish kind of ideology, and theydefinitely are trying to give a
man a fish at every opportunity.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
That's yeah, yeah, and, and it's, and, and digging
the hole deeper and deeper.
I mean all at the same time.
Yeah, we've built, we've built,we built the the mountain to to
this level, but now we need togo beyond.
But now we need to pour moneyfor more dirt on top of the
mountain to this level, but nowwe need to go beyond.
Now we need to pour money pourmore dirt on top of the mountain
and build it even bigger.
Yeah, build it even bigger, butyou're doing it at the expense
(20:00):
of digging the hole deeper.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
Okay, we're back.
Brad Keithley Alaskans forSustainable Budgets, the weekly
top three.
Brad is starting off a newsegment.
Stealing a little bit from thegreat Paul Harvey, Brad has got
a little bit of his own the restof the story.
So, Brad, what is the rest ofthe story?
Give me the deal here.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
Well, this is sort of a demographic test in a way,
because those who remember PaulHarvey will sort of identify
their self-identify, their ageas they as they do this.
But Paul Harvey was a greatradio.
For those who don't rememberPaul Harvey, paul Harvey was a
great radio commentator, uh, uh,back in the day who, uh, had
(20:43):
this great delivery, uh,approach, uh, that really sort
of grabbed your attention and hehad a series called the rest of
the story where he would, youknow, describe, take a news
article and and and discuss thenews article and then say, but
here is the rest of the story,uh, around that news article,
(21:03):
and, and, and.
It was often, well, it wasevery time fascinating about
what the rest of the story toldyou.
So in a, in a very poorimitation of that, I'm going to
start a little series ofoccasional series of talking
about the rest of the storybehind some of the statements
politicians are making.
And this week it's a couple ofnew candidates for governor,
(21:28):
adam Crum and Tom Begich, whoare running on certain platforms
that tell only part of thestory, that really have only
part of the story behind it.
Adam Crum's is one that just.
I'm not a big Crum fan, andit's just one that really
(21:48):
irritates me.
Here's an article the articleabout Adam Crum's announcement
for his run for governor fromthe Frontiersman, and it says
Crum recently resigned ascommissioner of the Department
of Revenue, a position he heldafter being appointed by
Governor Mike Dunleavy,highlighting his accomplishments
, including boosting the state'scredit rating to the highest
(22:12):
it's been in years, whileoptimizing investments and
working on bringing newopportunities to the state.
I want to focus on the first oneboosting the state's credit
rating to the highest it's beenin years.
You know why we have a highcredit rating.
It's because we have deep PFDcuts.
All the credit rating agenciesare concerned about is can you
(22:32):
pay your bills on time?
They don't care about thespending.
They don't care about how badthe spending is, how skewed the
spending is.
They just want to make sure youcan pay your bills on time.
And if you can pay, if you'vegot a revenue base, if you've
identified a revenue base thatenables you to pay your bills on
time, then you get a highcredit rating.
(22:55):
Alaska had a low credit ratingback in the, or a lower credit
rating back in the mid-20-teensand sort of the late-20-teens.
This is when Devin Mitchell,who's now the head of the
Permanent Fund Corporation.
Devin Mitchell was essentiallythe state treasurer.
He was responsible for thestate's debt and responsible for
(23:17):
making the presentations toWall Street on the state's
financial situation, which wasthe basis for the credit rating.
The credit ratings were goingdown because the agencies were
looking at the state's spend andthey were looking at the then
revenue base and saying thisisn't sustainable.
We don't know what you guys aredoing out there, but we don't
(23:38):
think you're setting yourself upwell to pay your bills.
And so our credit rating wasgoing down.
Devin, in the Walkeradministration, as part of the
Walker administration, went toWall Street and said don't worry
about that, we'll just startcutting pfds and we'll start
using pfd cuts dollars thatotherwise ought to go to the
(23:59):
pfds, to um, to divert those anduh and so lost spending.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
There we go sorry about that, brad.
We lost you for a minute there.
We had a massive internet spikethere, so I'm sorry.
Go back to the top of yourcomment there.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
As far as we had a problem with our spending and
that's where Devin Mitchell wasin charge- so Devin Mitchell,
who was in charge of the state'sdebt credit rating or state's
debt management at the timecredit rating, went to Wall
Street and said don't worryabout not having enough revenues
, we'll just start cutting PFDs.
(24:37):
And for a period of time 2017,2018, 2019, 2020, the credit
rating sort of rocked alongbecause Wall Street said, okay,
we hear you, but let's see ifthe legislature goes along with
that.
Let's see if they will actuallycut PFDs and if they do, then
okay, everything's fine.
(24:57):
Yes, you have a revenue sourceand you're going to be able to
pay your bills.
Don't worry about it.
But there was a lot ofskepticism rightly so up in New
York about whether the statewould do a self-inflicted wound
like that.
Going back to the first segmentfor a moment whether the state
would self would would do aself-inflicted wound like that
uh, going back to the firstsegment for a moment.
If, whether the state would doa self-inflicted wound of using
pfd cuts to, uh to to pay bills.
(25:19):
Once we established that we didthat, we would.
Once devon convinced them thatthat's what we were going to do,
the walker administration wasgoing to do it and once it, once
the legislature got on a rolland started doing it, the
state's credit rating started toclimb.
So Adam Crum takes credit forhighlighting his accomplishments
(25:40):
, including boosting the state'scredit rating to the highest
it's been in years.
It's not anything Adam Crum did.
It's the continuation of whatDevin Mitchell started.
The Walker administrationstarted when Devin Mitchell was
in charge of selling Wall Streeton water bond rating on.
It ought to be.
It was the continuation ofthose PFD cuts, and so Adam's
(26:04):
Adam Crum's you know reputationthat he's claiming is built on
the backs of middle and lowerincome Alaska families who've
had to fund government throughPFD cuts instead of using other
approaches.
That's the rest of the storyfor Adam Crum.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
Well, and before you jump into it, do you think that
that is such an amorphous thingto stand behind?
I mean, I don't think theaverage Alaskan gives two craps
about whether or not the creditrating of the state is pristine
or not.
Right, it's just such a weirdthing to brag about.
I saw that in one of his othercommentaries.
Oh, you know, he under histutelage, the blah, blah, blah
(26:43):
and the credit, and I'm likewhat, what average Alaskan cares
about the credit rating of thestate?
We want a fiscal plan.
We want to know that there'sgoing to be stability.
We want to know that oureconomies are going to be
bolstered.
Who cares about it?
To me it was such a weird thingto highlight, but again, he has
(27:07):
so few accomplishments he's gotto hang on to anything that he
can put his hat on at this point.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
That's the deal.
There's nothing else.
I mean Crum hasn't helpedcontribute to resolving our
fiscal situation.
He hasn't helped implement thelegislature's 2021 fiscal policy
working group agenda.
He hasn't helped push forwardon in fact, he's gone in the
reverse on oil revenues and hehasn't helped push forward on
modernizing oil revenuesrevenues he has.
(27:34):
He as a member of the permanentfund board.
He hasn't pushed for investmentpolicies that would boost the
pomb.
He hasn't done anything else.
So he's grabbing onto this onething that really comes out of
the walker administration.
He's grabbing onto this onething as as his highlight,
because that's really all thathe's got and it's just, it's
(27:55):
just humorous to listen to himtalk about it.
All right, tom Begich here.
Here's.
Here's the rest of the story onthe Tom Begich statement.
Tom Begich announced that he'srunning for governor in the in
the APRN in the Alaska publicmedia article on Begich's
announcement.
I didn't see this any placeelse, but APRN picks it up.
(28:16):
So the main reason he's running, he said, is to reverse what he
sees as state stagnation.
He emphasized the need to boosteducation funding and to raise
state revenues from corporatetaxes, trimming oil tax credits
and the like.
He says $500 million in newstate revenues within easy reach
.
That's just agreeing aboutthose things that make sense.
(28:37):
None of those things cost anindividual Alaskan anything.
So the rest of the story onthat is I mean, this is like
Elise Galvin when she says, oh,I've got a solution and I've got
an income tax.
Is like Elise Galvin when shesays, oh, I've got a solution
and I've got an income tax.
When you look at it it's thisvery thin layer of raising
(28:58):
revenues built on the backs ofPFD cuts.
So we've got about a billionseven.
A billion eight depends uponwhat oil prices are at the time.
We're facing about a billionseven billion eight, 8, um uh
deficit over the next uh 10years.
Average deficit over the next10 years.
Baggage is 500 million.
Wouldn't raise even a third ofthat, wouldn't solve even a
(29:20):
third um of the of the problem.
Fiscal policy working group sayswe've got to raise some
revenues.
We've got to raise some oilrevenues.
We've got to do spending cuts,we've got to cap spending.
We've got to do a lot of things.
All Begich has picked up on isthe oh, we got to raise some
revenues and that $500 millionwouldn't even cover a third of
(29:41):
the deficit that we're running.
What's sitting underneath that?
How does he do the rest of that?
Continuous PFD cuts?
I mean, if you're not talkingabout a full solution to the
billion seven billion eightproblem, if you're not talking
about a comprehensive solutionto that problem, you're only
talking about a piece of thesolution.
(30:03):
The rest of it.
What you're saying implicitly isthe rest of it's going to be
covered by the way we've beencovering it through is through
PFD cuts.
So the rest of the story onBegich yes, he's got a fiscal
plan.
Yes, he's going to be coveredby the way we've been covering
it through is through pfd cuts.
So the rest of the story onbaggage yeah, yes, he's got,
he's got a fiscal plan.
Yes, he's going to raise somerevenue, less than a third of
the deficits that we're facing.
Uh, yes, he's going to raisesome revenues.
But what the part he's notsaying the rest of the story is?
(30:25):
It's based upon, it's built onpfd cuts.
It's built on continuing themost regressive tax ever
proposed.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
Right, and it doesn't touch but even a third of the
current deficit projected.
And that's even before we getinto last week's discussion of
the IEA and EIA and thepotential for, you know, $2
billion in deficits.
If you include the supplementaland everything else, I mean
it's going to be significant.
It wouldn't even hardly be adrop in the bucket on that, but
(30:56):
he's uh, he's going to talkabout that and that's a.
You know, that's a valid andinteresting point.
You know, what I foundinteresting about that article
my kind of rest of the storytake on this is that he's he's
basically just a placeholder.
He admits it in there.
He's basically just aplaceholder.
He admits it in there.
He's basically just aplaceholder.
Because the article mentionsthat Mary Peltola is the last
Democrat to win a statewide race, but that she hadn't announced
(31:19):
whether she was running for anyoffice.
And he said well, I've alwaystold her and I'd say this to you
if she were to get in the race,I wouldn't need to be in this
race.
She'd be in the race, but I'min the race, and that is the
difference.
He's basically, I'm just a, I'mjust a placeholder.
I'm just a placeholder of the,which I thought was interesting
as well.
On top of all that, I'm justhere to fill, I'm just here to
(31:40):
warm the seat until Mary decideswhat she wants to do, which is,
you know, some irony there aswell.
All right, finish up the restof the story, brad, before we
move on to number three here.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
Well, no, that is the rest of the story.
The rest of the story iswhenever anybody's going to come
to you during this campaigncycle Begich and others saying
I've got a solution to thefiscal problems, and it's X.
In Begich's case, it's $500million of new revenues.
I've got a solution to thefiscal problem and it's X.
Keep in mind the rest of thestory is okay.
(32:12):
The whole is $1.7 billion, $1.8billion, $2 billion, depending
upon the oil price of the day.
The whole is that.
Are they talking about asolution that encompasses,
comprehensively solves the $2billion problem, $1.7 billion
problem?
Are they talking about asolution that comprehensively
(32:33):
solves that?
If they aren't, there's a restof the story.
And the rest of the story isthey're really talking about PFD
cuts to fill the.
Speaker 2 (32:41):
To fill the remainder Right, because, again, but even
if they took the whole PFD, westill don't have them.
I mean, come on, this is thisis getting down to the point of
where, if you generated 500million more and took all the
pfd, you still wouldn't haveenough at this point.
Uh, because it's only another600 million on the pf, you're
still only at 1.1 billion.
You're still short.
(33:01):
Continuing.
Now, brad keithley, alaskansfor sustainable budgets, weekly
top three kind of a differentchange of pace for our top three
this week.
Uh, now we, now we've got a.
Uh.
His final thoughts is animportant life, a memoriam, uh,
Brad.
So give us your thoughts hereon uh, on, uh, on, on what's
happening here.
Give us the, give us, give ussome insight here.
Speaker 1 (33:23):
Well, steve Haycox, uh, who was who?
Um was a long time universityof Alaska Anchorage professor of
history and someone who I'veadmired greatly past this last
week, and I, and I want to, Iwant to note how significant I
think Haycox is and howsignificant he will continue to
(33:46):
be through the, through thebooks he wrote and through the
articles he uh, he, he published.
When I came to Alaska, Istarted digging into Alaska.
There were four people really,uh, who had written a lot about
Alaska, who I really spent a lotof time um uh, studying and
reading and getting to know uhin some sense uh with with each
(34:08):
of them.
Um, steve Haycox was one notedAlaska historian.
Scott Goldsmith, who we'vetalked about a lot on the show
over the years, a former retiredemeritus professor at
University of Alaska, anchorageon economics, headed ICER for a
while, wrote some great stuffback in the late 2000s and early
(34:30):
20 teens on sustainable budgetsreally sort of the genesis of
the Alaskans for SustainableBudgets was another one I've
written, I've read a lot.
Jack Roderick, who former mayorof first mayor of the Unified
Anchorage Borough maybe, but aformer mayor of Anchorage at
least but more importantly, alongtime oil and gas lawyer,
(34:55):
wrote a book called Crude Dreamswhich to me is the best oil and
gas book ever written aboutAlaska.
Described the beginning of theAlaska oil age.
Jack was there and describedthe development over the years
and I think has some terrificinsights.
And then Terrence Cole, who wasprofessor of history, sort of
(35:17):
Steve Haycox's counterpart atUAF University of Alaska,
fairbanks, and also Dermot'sbrother twin brother, terrence
Cole historian.
I read a lot of his stuff butHaycox had a huge influence on
how I've come to understandAlaska.
He wrote four books.
One was called A Warm PastTravels in Alaska History
(35:43):
Interesting sort of view ofvarious times in Alaska history.
The second was Alaska andAmerican colony which really
outlines, I think, his view thatAlaska has, has, was and
remained, remains in manyrespects a colony of, of, of of
(36:04):
America rather than rather thana full-fledged state, frigid
embrace politics, economics andEnvironment in Alaska, which I
thought was a great way ofunderstanding, another way of
understanding the oil industryand Battleground Alaska,
fighting Federal Power inAlaska's, in America's Last
(36:24):
Wilderness.
Those were the books and a lotlike Scott Goldsmith's stuff on
economics books and a lot likeScott Goldsmith's stuff on
economics, haycox's stuff onhistory I think really helped me
(36:45):
understand the fundamentals ofAlaska history and the forces
and the dynamics at work inAlaska history, not only in
Alaska, not uh today.
And so I, really I, I, I want tonote um uh, steve's passing and
and talk about it in the senseof just just mention this, in
the sense of not only, not only,you know, highlighting Steve uh
(37:07):
as as as with his passing, but,but, but noting that Steve will
continue to live on in terms of, in terms of the things he's
written in theN over the years.
He was a semi-regularcontributor.
He and John Havelock weresemi-contributor uh,
(37:35):
semi-regular contributors to theuh, to the ADN, and one piece
he wrote in 2018 that I thatI've kept sort of if, if I, if I
kept these things on paper,it'd be yellow sheeted by now.
It'd be turning at the edges.
But, uh, one of one of thepieces he wrote back in 2018,
while we were still in the earlyPFD wars, he wrote an op-ed
(37:58):
piece and it says Alaska isstill an economic colony.
The legislature's action on thepermanent fund earnings prove it
.
And basically the theme of theessay was look, alaska says it's
self-reliant, but it's reallynot.
It turns to the federalgovernment for money to fund its
(38:20):
operations, a point where thestate funding is low.
Rather than raise money broadly, or rather than raise money by
going back and looking at theoil industry or looking at our
other resource industries, we'restarting to take it out of the
pockets of Alaskans, the verypeople that we're trying to,
(38:45):
that we're trying to claim areself-reliant.
Down toward the end of thecolumn he says this the
designers of the AlaskaPermanent Fund hope to wrest
more of the benefit from theexploitation of Alaska's
resources for the people ofAlaska and at the same time
somewhat mitigate the effects ofour economic dependency.
(39:05):
As the fund was made part of theConstitution, the corpus cannot
be appropriated by thelegislature, but the dividend
program drawn annually from theearnings of the fund is how all
Al has now diverted into statecoffers for general
appropriation, created a statedependency, created dependency
created, created a dependency onthe state government for their
(39:26):
livelihood.
Would it please the designersof the fund that the state
legislature has now divertedinto state coffers for general
appropriation a large portion ofwhat used to be the people's
(39:48):
direct benefit?
No Exclamation point.
Exclamation point generalappropriation a large part
portion of what used to be thepeople's direct benefit no
exclamation point.
Exclamation point.
Former jay, former governor jayhammond, said clearly that the
funds earnings should go to thepeople's hands, not the
legislatures.
This is at a time when, whenyou know, the debate was on
about whether we ought to justgive up on the pfd and let the
state have or go forward, andthat was a, that was a steve.
(40:09):
Haycox's words were a keyturning point for me in saying
no, we ought to continue thefight for the PFD.
So the man lived a great life,but his words lived on.
If you haven't read the books,read them.
If you haven't read the essays,read them.
He had.
He just has a huge amount ofinsight.
He's had a huge amount ofinsight about the state.
Speaker 2 (40:27):
Yeah, and I mean some of his articles especially.
You know that one talkingspecifically about you know this
is what the framers intended ofthe Constitution and then this
is what the architects of thepermanent fund intended, and you
could see it right there.
I mean, anybody who has anydoubt about what's being done
(40:50):
and what's been done to thepermanent fund says Bill Walker
understands that people likeHammond would be outraged that
this is what's going on, and hemakes that point, I think, very
well in some of his pieces andsome of his articles.
And it's like you said.
It's kind of sad that we'velost that, that voice,
especially from an academicstandpoint, of being able to go
back and look at history.
But the lessons are still there.
The lessons are still there tobe learned.
Speaker 1 (41:12):
They are.
They are.
And the thing about the PFDthat struck me so much, he put
it in a historical context.
It's look, alaskans have been acolony.
They've been dependent onsomebody like forever, and we've
been an American colony.
We've been dependent on thefederal government and this was
a turning point.
I mean, what Hickok saw is thiswas a turning point in Alaska.
(41:35):
Are we going to continue to bedependent on somebody or are we
going to allow self-sufficiency,at least this step towards
self-sufficiency, to exist?
And his point was look, nowwe're turning everybody into
dependent on the state.
You've talked about dependencya lot and this is what I mean.
Haycox was putting this in thehistorical context and saying
(41:57):
look, this is a watershed event,that we are now creating
another dependency on the state.
Instead of allowing Alaskans tobe self-reliant and giving them
the resources to beself-reliant, we're turning them
into another dependency on thestate.
And instead of allowingAlaskans to be self-reliant and
giving them the resources to beself-reliant, we're turning them
into another dependency on thestate.
Speaker 2 (42:13):
Well, rest in peace.
Stephen Haycox brought a lot ofgood information out there and
again, he's going to live on andyou could find his books out
there, I'm sure, and his opinionpieces in the ADN.
I remember reading that piecefrom Haycox where he was
specifically talking about that.
You know, the no like the bigno like this is not what they
(42:34):
would have wanted and this isnot what they intended.
And yet we continue to seethese actions from our
legislators and we just go.
Guys, you're missing the wholepoint here.
You're missing the whole point,and it's painful.
Those that fail to learn thelessons of history are doomed to
repeat them.
And it's painful those thatfail to learn the lessons of
history are doomed to repeatthem.
And that's where we're at rightnow, yeah, they grab the.
Speaker 1 (42:56):
I mean, there's a lot of things you can say about
that 2017, 2018, 2019 period,but they grabbed the easy thing.
They didn't do the hard work.
They didn't dig in and do thehard work that Alaska needed at
that point.
They could because, sort oflike your stockbroker, right I
(43:18):
mean?
Or sort of like your financialadvisor, the funds come through
him in a way, on their way toyou.
They're your funds, they areset aside for you, they're held
in trust for you as they comethrough your stockbroker, but
they come through his fingers.
And the permanent fund dividendcomes through the fingers of
(43:39):
the legislature.
And rather than let that flowthrough, as the statute provided
, rather than allow theadditional support of
self-sufficiency that thefathers envisioned, the
legislature just did the easything and just took those funds,
(43:59):
just diverted those funds intoits own pocket.
Speaker 2 (44:01):
Yeah, well, I've made the analogy before, I think, to
Randy, where I said you knowit's like a money market fund,
you know market managers wherethey just decide to take all of
the dividend that you would havereceived as a shareholder
because their expenses were up.
And you'd be like, hey, wait,wait, wait, a second, you're
taking all my, you're taking allof my dividend, all the money
(44:22):
that's owed me because yourexpenses are up.
That's a problem.
I don't care if you thinkyou're benefiting me or not.
I think that's a problem.
Up, that's a problem.
I don't care if you thinkyou're benefiting me or not.
I think that's a problem.
And I think it's a validargument that you know we should
be looking at that and goingwell, wait a second, wait a
second, give us the money.
And this goes back to my oldanalogy of you know, I think we
should just all get.
I think we should get all themoney directly.
(44:43):
Stop giving it directly to thestate, right, just give it all
to us directly.
We'll all get a check for20,000 bucks a piece and then
when they issue that tax billthe next week for 18,500 a piece
, there would be some, therewould be a reckoning, right,
there would be a reckoning oflike whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa,
(45:11):
whoa.
Wait a second, I just got 20grand and you want, you want 18,
five of it to to fund whateverwe.
We need to look at somethinghere.
I mean, it would come to ascreeching halt in this state.
Speaker 1 (45:16):
Yeah, the reason Haycox resonated so much with me
on that piece is in a formerlife, as an oil and gas lawyer
down in the lower 48, I hadrepresented family trusts in
connection with family truststhat were created to handle oil
royalties and, and the way theywere structured was, the oil
(45:36):
royalties came into the trust.
Um, uh, they were invested.
Uh, some of them some of themwere were flowed through.
There were trust instructionson how to flow it through, but
the portion that wasn't flowedthrough was invested.
Sounds familiar, doesn't it?
And the trust provided that thedollars would go out on a
per-person basis, equally on aper-person basis, to all the
(45:59):
members of the family.
That was the family trust.
The PFD is nothing more.
Or the permanent fund isstructured the same as that.
It's structured in the same wayas the old family trust down in
the lower 48.
And you would never even thinkin the lower 48, you would never
even think of saying, oh well,a portion of this goes to the
state, a portion of this goes tosomeone disproportionately.
(46:23):
It's the way the trust was setup and that's what the permanent
fund statute is.
It's the trust rules, it's theprovisions of the trust that
describes how the benefits areto be distributed.
It is so analogous to a lower48 family oil and gas trust,
royalty trust.
(46:43):
I mean, to me it was just ohwell, that's obvious.
Somebody was really thinkingthrough the provisions and and
so Haycox comes along and sayslook, this is a way we were
going to provideself-sufficiency, this is a way
we're going to provide for, youknow, to get off government, to
get off reliance on thegovernment, dependency on the
government.
It was Hammond's vision andothers' vision that this was a
(47:05):
step to make Alaskansindependent.
And here we go.
You know, we're an American,we've been a US colony because
of dependency on the federalgovernment.
Now we're creating anotherdependency on the state, on
state funding, by allowing themto, you know, take these funds
(47:27):
and deprive them of, cut themoff and withhold them and divert
them from the pockets of Alaskafamilies.
It was a great insight.
That essay was a great insightinto the historical significance
of that decision.
Michael, could we use thissegment?
I'll talk about it more nextweek, but could we use this
(47:47):
segment to give a shout out toMike Kronk?
Speaker 2 (47:48):
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.
I saw that article and I waslike, wow, that's some
interesting stuff right therethat he seems to.
Maybe he's listening.
Maybe all of our chatter aboutthis is finally starting to get
through, because he actually istalking about some of the things
(48:09):
that we've been talking abouton the show for sure.
Speaker 1 (48:12):
So yesterday was the first meeting of the Legislative
Task Force Right and the ADNhas an article on it.
The headline is AlaskaLawmakers Convene an Education
Funding Task Force.
The ADN article is you know,80% of it is we need more, we
need more, we need more.
And all the legislators aresaying, oh, we need more funding
(48:36):
for this, we need more fundingfor that school funding task.
The task force is on fundingand basically it was just we
need more of it.
But Kronk at the end had Kronkat the end of this article is
quoted in and, I think, a greatinsight.
Cronk, a former school teacher,pointed to one looming factor
not within the task force'spurview the state fiscal plan.
(48:56):
For years, most lawmakers haveagreed that the state is not
bringing enough revenue to payfor all the services that
Alaska's expect, includingpublic schools.
Fiscal plan working groupconvened in 2021, brought
together a bipartisan group oflawmakers to discuss specific
questions, much like theeducation task force seeks to do
now, but most of the fiscalplan recommendations were never
adopted.
This is a quote from Kronk.
(49:18):
We need to create a fiscal planfor this state so we're not
doing what we're doing everysingle year fighting over which
funds do we take from somewhereelse to fund something else,
said Kroc.
If we're talking about funding,that should be our goal as part
of this, and I think that's ahuge insight.
Look, the task force is focusingon one piece of the state's
(49:42):
goals or one piece of thestate's problem the education
funding, k through 12 funding.
But you can't do that inisolation, because you solve
education and you've justcreated a problem someplace else
.
You can't do one piece of thiswithout having the overarching
plan of how you do fiscal policy, having fiscal policy resolved
(50:05):
as a whole, or else you're just,you know, stealing from one to
pay another, just digging thehole deeper in order to build a
bigger mountain.
It's.
You can't do this in isolation.
And Cronk Cronk making thatpoint during the task force, I
think is an excellent way ofhighlighting this issue and
(50:25):
getting that issue on the tableand keeping that issue on the
table.
So I hope, I hope Senator Cronkcontinues to do that, I hope
Representative Rutledge, who'sthe other Republican on the task
force, picks it up and repeats.
That, amplifies it and I hopeit starts getting through to the
other members of the task force.
You can't do this in isolation.
Speaker 2 (50:46):
Right Rough ridge there.
Yeah, no, I think that it was.
It was refreshing to see,especially in such a short
article, they were actually ableto fit that, you know, actually
put that in there at the endand I was like, wow, maybe
somebody is actually hearingwhat we've been saying this
whole time.
Or coming, finally, comingaround to the same conclusion.
You can't just keep doing whatyou've been doing and expect
(51:09):
that there's going to bedifferent results.
Uh, on that for sure, um, andagain, the fact that we keep
looking to these folks who, um,whose soul, whose sole answer
seems to be again, the edgemanthing of, well, we just need to
spend more, that'll fix it.
The more we spend, the betterit'll get.
Um, unfortunately, you know,eventually, once they've taken
(51:31):
all of the PFD and once they'vetaken whatever 500 million that
baggage is talking about anddone all this other stuff,
they're going to come to thesame conclusion and and
basically say, well, we've gotto find more money somewhere
we're going to, we're going tosee those taxes some way shape
or form, and we best be having aconversation about it before it
(51:53):
gets to that point.
Speaker 1 (51:54):
Yeah and you can't.
I mean, they're going to comeup with whatever they're going
to come up with.
The task force is going to comeup with whatever the task force
is going to come up with, butit's just going to be about K
through 12.
And so K through 12 is going tohave this status of having a
task force about it and they'llsay, oh, we need more funding
here and more funding there.
We need to change the formulahere and change the formula
(52:14):
there, crowding out somethingelse along the way.
You've got to have theoverarching architecture of how
you're going to do your fiscalplan and then fit K through 12
inside that, just as you fit theother pieces inside it, just as
you fit infrastructure, just asyou fit transportation, just as
(52:35):
you fit the other pieces insideit.
You've got to have that overallarchitecture before you do any
part of it.
So I think Kronk has done agreat service by raising that
issue.
I hope he continues it duringthe subsequent meetings and I
hope Representative Ruffridgeechoes it as they keep on going.
Speaker 2 (52:53):
We'll have to see.
We'll have to see if somebody,if there's maybe light in the
foxhole, we'll have to see whathappens here.
All right, brad?
Well, good stuff.
Thank you for coming on board.
As always, it's great to talkwith you and we look forward to
next and again, the upcomingelection season.
I just um, I'm, I'm kind of Idon't even know.
I'm trying to brace myself.
(53:14):
Gertrude, that's what I'mtrying to do try to brace myself
for what's coming well, it'llbe great.
Speaker 1 (53:19):
It'll be great stuff for rest of the story segments
oh yeah, absolutely that.
Speaker 2 (53:23):
We'll be doing two or three of those segments a week.
Absolutely all right.
Brad, thanks so much for comingon board.
We appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (53:30):
Michael, as always, thanks for having me.
Well, that's a wrap for anotherweek's edition of the weekly
top three from Alaskans forSustainable Budgets.
Thank you again for joining us.
Remember that you can find pastepisodes on our YouTube,
soundcloud, spotify and Substackpages and keep track of us
during the week on Facebook andTwitter.
This has been Brad Keith,managing director of Alaskans
(53:56):
for Sustainable Budgets.
We look forward to you joiningus again next week on the Weekly
Top Three.
Thank you,
Hi, this is Brad Keithley, managing Director of
Alaskans for Sustainable Budgets.
Welcome to the weekly top threethe top three things on our
mind here at Alaskans forSustainable Budgets for the week
of August 25th 2025.
The weekly top three is aregular segment on the Michael
Dukes Show.
The show broadcasts on bothFacebook Live and YouTube Live
(00:32):
as well as via streaming audiofrom the show's website.
Weekdays from 6 to 8 am.
I join Michael weekly in thefirst hour of Tuesday's show
from 6.10 to 7 am for adiscussion between the two of us
about our three issues.
We post the podcast of ourdiscussion following the show on
the Alaskans for SustainableBudgets Facebook, youtube,
(00:55):
soundcloud, spotify and Substackpages.
Also on the Alaskans forSustainable Budgets website, as
well as the projects page onnational blog site mediumcom.
You can find past episodes ofthe weekly top three also at the
same locations.
Keep in mind that, in additionto these podcasts during the
(01:15):
week, you can also follow andparticipate in the discussion
with us of these and otherissues affecting Alaska's fiscal
and economic condition byfollowing us on the Alaskans for
Sustainable Budgets Facebookpage and through our posts on
Twitter.
This week, our top three issuesare these First, we discuss some
recent comments by SpeakerEdgeman about the economic
(01:39):
strains being felt by Alaska'scoastal communities and explain
why, in certain real respects,they have been self-inflicted.
Second, we start a newoccasional series by explaining
the rest of the storysurrounding some recent campaign
comments by Adam Crum and TomBegich.
Third, we remember StephenHaycox and the lessons we
(02:03):
learned from him about Alaska,and we'll continue to learn as
we and others continue to readthe rich legacy that he left
behind with us.
And finally, in some briefclosing comments, we give a
shout out to Senator Mike Kronkfor some comments he made at
this week's opening meeting ofthe Education Task Force.
(02:24):
And now let's join Michael.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
You've got a lot of stuff to unpack with us today,
brad.
Today we're going to startthings off with what you're
calling the big self-inflictedwound, and this has to do with a
piece that is reporting onSpeaker Bryce Edgman, who he's
he's warning that boy, thingsare just so tough and it's so
(02:50):
bad, you know, and, of course,never acknowledging the fact
that it was the actions of thelegislature that has contributed
to where we're at right now.
So give me, give me the rundownhere here.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
So there's an article in Alaska Public Media this
past week, the headline of whichis House Speaker Edgman warns
of deepening strains in Alaskacoastal communities, and it
reports on remarks that Brycegave during a conference focused
on Alaska coastal communitiesand his discussion of, or his
talk about, how times areworsening.
Economic times are worseningout in those communities, that
(03:32):
prices are rising, airfares arerising, fish revenues are
falling and it's just havingthis tightening vice on the
coastal communities.
And I sat there reading thisarticle and I just kept going
okay, okay, okay.
All this stuff is is bad.
(03:52):
They need more revenue, theyneed more personal revenue out
in out in the coastalcommunities.
But who's been taking thatrevenue away?
Who's been diverting a bigchunk of money that comes into
the coastal communities away?
Oh, it's been the legislatureand Bryce.
So as I read through this andstarted to understand the points
(04:19):
he was making and understandthe problems he was addressing,
understand the problems he wasaddressing, it started to dawn
on me that some of this, atleast, is a self-inflicted wound
by the legislature, by theregion's own legislative
delegation, to take money away.
I posted this and made thatcomment on one of our outlets,
(04:40):
the Alaskans for SustainableBudgets group page, facebook
group page and Willie Keppel, alistener, made the comment yeah,
he's diverted $100 million outof just Lyman Hoffman's Senate
district the two halves that areBryce's state representative
(05:02):
district and Nellie Jimmy'sstate district that he's
diverted $100 million out ofthat district through PFD cuts.
It wouldn't be that much.
It'd be you'd have to.
I mean, if you don't use thePFD cuts to fund government, you
have to do something to fundgovernment.
A portion of it would come fromincreased oil revenues, a
(05:24):
portion would come from betterpermanent fund returns and thus
a bigger POMV draw.
But a portion of it would haveto come from Alaskans and just
like it's coming now fromAlaskans through PFD cuts, a
portion of it would have to comein another fashion from
Alaskans, which would reduce the$100 million a little bit.
But it's a huge chunk of moneythat's being taken out of those
(05:48):
communities by Bryce himself,bryce and Lyman themselves
through using PFD cuts asopposed to other revenue
measures that could be used toraise the money.
The thing that really got me wasthe last paragraph of this
article.
It says the legislature haslimited power for many of these
(06:10):
challenges, which fall tofederal policy and private
industry.
Still, edgeman says the statecan play a role, from boosting
school budgets to pushing forstronger seafood marketing and
supporting rural transportationnetworks.
His solution and this is afundamental problem not only
with Bryce and Lyman but thelegislature itself they think
(06:33):
the solution is tied up inspending more state money to
effectively try to lower costs,substitute state money for costs
that are being incurred out inthe regions.
But what they don't focus on isthe revenue side.
Very few in the legislaturefocus on the revenue side of
(06:55):
anything but they don't focus onthe revenue side and don't
focus on what they're doing onthe revenue side.
And by funding this additionalspending to try to moderate
costs indirectly, try tomoderate costs out in the region
, they're whacking Alaskafamilies in the region in the
(07:16):
face by taking revenue out oftheir pockets, diverting revenue
out of their pockets to fundthose costs.
I wish that Bryce and otherswould focus on the revenue side
and say what's a better revenuesystem than the revenue system
we're using now that takes moneydirectly from middle and lower
(07:36):
income Alaska families, the verythe core of the constituency
that he and Lyman and Nelliehave out in those districts, out
in that region?
What's a better revenue systemto raise the revenue we say we
need, or maybe not raise therevenue at all, maybe just cut
spending.
But what's a better system?
Whatever revenue we need, setaside the spending cuts that
(07:57):
need to be made, but whateverrevenue we need, what's a better
revenue system for our regionthan the revenue system we're
using now, which is PFD cuts?
I wish they would take the timeto think through that and if
they did, they would realizethere are much better revenue
systems that would help theregion and so, instead of
(08:20):
talking about all of theproblems that are there because
the costs are rising, they couldhelp to ameliorate that by
helping raise revenue, by usinga different revenue system to
raise the revenue that wouldleave more in the pockets of
Alaska families in the region.
It's a self-defeating.
The mechanism that they andothers in the legislature have
(08:42):
set up is a self-defeatingmechanism that is a
self-inflicted wound on thatregion, particularly the rural
regions of Alaska.
It's a self-inflicted wound onthose regions by taking out the
revenue source that is mostimportant to those regions,
taxing the revenue source thatis most important to those
(09:05):
regions, and it's just.
I mean it's whenever you seeone of these articles or you see
one of Bryce's speeches or yousee one of the comments.
It's just the absence ofunderstanding that that really
strikes home.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Well, and I think what you're looking at is this
is this is the overall feel for,uh, you know, uh, this is a
snapshot into the mindset of thelegislators.
I mean, they're talking abouthow these areas are struggling
and the local economies areburdened, and and, etc.
Etc.
But the answer is obviously notmaking sure that the economies
(09:40):
in those areas are doing well ontheir own, and not what people
could be, you know, doing withtheir own monies or taking care
of their selves, taking care ofthemselves.
This is, like you said.
It's all about the governmentspend.
The state can play a roleboosting school budgets, pushing
for stronger seafood marketing,doing all this is all about.
(10:03):
They know better than you howthat money should be spent.
Not a word about the hundredsof you know, tens of millions of
dollars that have been takenout of the private economy in
terms of the PFD cut, and maybethose people could take care of
themselves in some ways byhaving that money.
It is a snapshot into themindset of we know better than
you how to do this and youshould just let us have free
(10:26):
reign, essentially to go dothose things yeah and and they
think yeah and they think weknow I mean we can boost, we can
boost school funding.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
well, okay, that helps those who are tied to that
.
That helps maybe some those whoare tied to the school economy
right In the communities andthat's a segment of the
communities, right but itdoesn't put money in the pockets
of the entire community.
I mean somebody who's not tiedto the school economy, which
would be a fairly significantsegment of the economy out there
(10:59):
not tied to the school economy.
It doesn't help them at all.
What you've done is you'vetaken money out of their pocket,
out of the pockets of thosefamilies, to put money in the
pockets of the fortunate few whoare tied to the school economy.
It's selective benefits thatthey're trying to create, to
(11:20):
create these constituencies thatare thankful to them or
dependent on them, at theexpense of the broad scale
families, the middle and lowerincome Alaska families in those
regions that are subsidizing theother segment of the economy
out there by losing money orhaving money diverted out of
their pockets to benefit thosefew.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
You see, it's a good start, Brad, because if we do
that and take the money out andeffect and help those people who
are, you know, it's going toentice more people to become
part of the government economy,and so therefore, pretty soon
everybody will be dependent onthe government economy, and so
then they can true I mean,really, maybe that's not in
their mind what the articulatedgoal, but I think,
(12:03):
subconsciously, that's what theywant.
They want everybody to bedependent on, you know, the
government largesse in one formor another, whether it's through
the school industry or thepublic safety, or, you know,
education, or you know you fillin the blank with whatever
public industry is in theseareas, and they want it to be
this cyclic.
You know money flows in andmoney flows out, because we're
(12:25):
all dependent on the.
You know that's ultimately, Ithink, what they're looking for.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
Yeah, it's sort of also the Reagan trickle-down
theory, right, if we give moneyto the schools and people tied
to the school economy have money, then it will trickle down to
the rest of the region.
I mean that trickle-down theoryhas never really worked.
It doesn't work at the federallevel with income tax.
(12:51):
It doesn't really work at thestate level with Bryce and
Lyman's state-funded economy outthere.
You know we're talking about asignificant amount of money.
I mean, we talk about the PFDin terms of the individual PFD,
but how we really ought to talkabout it is in terms of the
household impact.
(13:11):
And so that $3,000 cut thatWillie talks about, or maybe the
$2,500 cut after you take intoaccount the alternative funding
that you'd have to come up without the alternative funding that
you'd have to come up with,that's, you know, $7,500 to a
family of three is $10,000 to afamily of four cash in their
(13:32):
pockets in those in thoseregional economies and that's,
you know, in those regionaleconomies that's a lot of cash,
that's a lot of impact andyou're putting it in.
You're putting it in everyhousehold out there, it in every
(13:53):
household out there.
So it would be useful, I think,if Bryce and others would think
about these issues not only inhow can I spend more money to
help my region.
It's how can I help my regionhang on to more money, hang on
to more revenue in terms ofchanging the way in which the
state is raising the revenuethrough the most regressive,
(14:13):
using the most regressive taxsystem ever proposed.
According to ICER economistMatt Berman, if you change that,
if you use a more broad-based,if you use the fair share from
the oil industry that we'vetalked about, if you get more
from the POMV draw by gettingbetter earnings with the
(14:36):
permanent fund, if you changethe revenue side and leave that
money in the pockets of Alaskafamilies out in that region,
you're going to be a lot betteroff pockets of Alaska families
out in that region, you're goingto be a lot better off.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
Well, this is the continual, as you said,
self-inflicted wound.
I mean you're pointing to thisone here.
We've pointed to the wholecrisis with a permanent fund by
moving money out of the ERA, andyou know it's like a continual.
We're self-inflicting our owncrises to then justify the
actions of what we're doing downthe road.
And that's, I think, again ahabit that we've got going on in
this legislature as well.
Donna wins the internet today,hashtag Brad explaining
(15:14):
socialism, because that'sexactly what we've got going on
in this.
You know, we have the mostsocialistic constitution in the
state of Alaska.
We all own it collectively andeverything else.
And of course, that wassomething that Hammond talked
about.
He was trying to do.
He was trying to, you know, hewas trying to get the resource
(15:37):
monies into the hands ofAlaskans.
He said, you know, explained itas one of the most capitalistic
things he could do, trying toget people engaged in it.
And of course, the legislatureseems to be doing everything in
its power to reverse that, sothat the money all flows to
government and then they controland decide where the money goes
.
And that's why we're, you know,that's why we're facing some of
(15:59):
the challenges that we havetoday, and it's why we have the
same problems today that we had20 years ago, if not worse,
right, if not worse because now,at least the striking at the
permanent fund corpus itself iswithin sight.
They can actually see if theyhave a plan that's articulated
and ready to go, brad.
(16:21):
But your thoughts on that?
Speaker 1 (16:23):
Well, I just think it's.
We don't stop and sit there andthink about both the revenue
the family revenue side and thecost side the family cost side.
All the legislature seems to bedoing is thinking about the
(16:43):
cost side.
And how can we, the legislature, substitute money to bring
those costs down?
How could we bring airplanetickets down, the cost of
airplane tickets down?
How could we bring airplanetickets down?
How, the cost of airplanetickets down?
How could we bring the cost ofhousing down?
How can we bring, you know,this or that down by spending
money?
They're not focusing on wherethat money's coming from, and
it's just it's, you know it's.
(17:05):
It's you're trying to make.
You're trying to make this isthe analogy that pops into my
head.
You're trying to make amountain over here.
You're trying to make this theanalogy that pops into my head.
You're trying to make amountain over here.
You're trying to, you know,build up a bunch of dirt and
create a mountain of of statesupport, but you're doing it at
the expense of digging this holeon the other side.
That's, that's coming out ofthe expense, coming out of the
(17:26):
pockets of alaska families,middle and lower alaska families
, the core of your constituency,any constituency, constituency
in the state.
80% of the of the entire stateis middle and lower income
Alaska families.
So you're doing it, you're,you're building up this mountain
and and you're and you're goingto, you know, pay tribute to
the mountain and say all thegood things I did by building
this mountain of of statesupport, but you've done it at
(17:48):
the expense of digging this bighole in the.
Don't look at the hole.
Don't look at the hole.
Look at the mountain In the, inthe pockets of, in the pockets
of Alaska families.
And it's, it's just, I mean,it's a, it's, you're.
Yes, the people who get toclimb the mountain, the people
who get to sit on the mountain,the people who are part of the
mountain, yes, they benefitGreat no-transcript thing.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
We're focusing on the one aspect of it.
Um and again, this goes back toand I think that that that
paragraph at the end of thearticle, as you point out,
summates the whole thing exactly.
You know, the state can play arole, says Edgman.
We have limited powers for manyof these challenges, although
(19:01):
they're the cause of many ofthese challenges.
I mean, you know, through theiractions.
But we can play a role byboosting school budgets and
pushing for stronger seafoodmarketing and supporting rural
transportation all having to dowith government spend.
Nothing about, you know,bolstering the private economy
and getting that rolling on itsown to help so people can help
(19:22):
themselves.
They need to look to governmentfor every aspect instead of
letting them help themselves orhelping them to help themselves.
You know it's the teach a manto fish and or giving a man a
fish kind of ideology, and theydefinitely are trying to give a
man a fish at every opportunity.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
That's yeah, yeah, and, and it's, and, and digging
the hole deeper and deeper.
I mean all at the same time.
Yeah, we've built, we've built,we built the the mountain to to
this level, but now we need togo beyond.
But now we need to pour moneyfor more dirt on top of the
mountain to this level, but nowwe need to go beyond.
Now we need to pour money pourmore dirt on top of the mountain
and build it even bigger.
Yeah, build it even bigger, butyou're doing it at the expense
(20:00):
of digging the hole deeper.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
Okay, we're back.
Brad Keithley Alaskans forSustainable Budgets, the weekly
top three.
Brad is starting off a newsegment.
Stealing a little bit from thegreat Paul Harvey, Brad has got
a little bit of his own the restof the story.
So, Brad, what is the rest ofthe story?
Give me the deal here.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
Well, this is sort of a demographic test in a way,
because those who remember PaulHarvey will sort of identify
their self-identify, their ageas they as they do this.
But Paul Harvey was a greatradio.
For those who don't rememberPaul Harvey, paul Harvey was a
great radio commentator, uh, uh,back in the day who, uh, had
(20:43):
this great delivery, uh,approach, uh, that really sort
of grabbed your attention and hehad a series called the rest of
the story where he would, youknow, describe, take a news
article and and and discuss thenews article and then say, but
here is the rest of the story,uh, around that news article,
(21:03):
and, and, and.
It was often, well, it wasevery time fascinating about
what the rest of the story toldyou.
So in a, in a very poorimitation of that, I'm going to
start a little series ofoccasional series of talking
about the rest of the storybehind some of the statements
politicians are making.
And this week it's a couple ofnew candidates for governor,
(21:28):
adam Crum and Tom Begich, whoare running on certain platforms
that tell only part of thestory, that really have only
part of the story behind it.
Adam Crum's is one that just.
I'm not a big Crum fan, andit's just one that really
(21:48):
irritates me.
Here's an article the articleabout Adam Crum's announcement
for his run for governor fromthe Frontiersman, and it says
Crum recently resigned ascommissioner of the Department
of Revenue, a position he heldafter being appointed by
Governor Mike Dunleavy,highlighting his accomplishments
, including boosting the state'scredit rating to the highest
(22:12):
it's been in years, whileoptimizing investments and
working on bringing newopportunities to the state.
I want to focus on the first oneboosting the state's credit
rating to the highest it's beenin years.
You know why we have a highcredit rating.
It's because we have deep PFDcuts.
All the credit rating agenciesare concerned about is can you
(22:32):
pay your bills on time?
They don't care about thespending.
They don't care about how badthe spending is, how skewed the
spending is.
They just want to make sure youcan pay your bills on time.
And if you can pay, if you'vegot a revenue base, if you've
identified a revenue base thatenables you to pay your bills on
time, then you get a highcredit rating.
(22:55):
Alaska had a low credit ratingback in the, or a lower credit
rating back in the mid-20-teensand sort of the late-20-teens.
This is when Devin Mitchell,who's now the head of the
Permanent Fund Corporation.
Devin Mitchell was essentiallythe state treasurer.
He was responsible for thestate's debt and responsible for
(23:17):
making the presentations toWall Street on the state's
financial situation, which wasthe basis for the credit rating.
The credit ratings were goingdown because the agencies were
looking at the state's spend andthey were looking at the then
revenue base and saying thisisn't sustainable.
We don't know what you guys aredoing out there, but we don't
(23:38):
think you're setting yourself upwell to pay your bills.
And so our credit rating wasgoing down.
Devin, in the Walkeradministration, as part of the
Walker administration, went toWall Street and said don't worry
about that, we'll just startcutting pfds and we'll start
using pfd cuts dollars thatotherwise ought to go to the
(23:59):
pfds, to um, to divert those anduh and so lost spending.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
There we go sorry about that, brad.
We lost you for a minute there.
We had a massive internet spikethere, so I'm sorry.
Go back to the top of yourcomment there.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
As far as we had a problem with our spending and
that's where Devin Mitchell wasin charge- so Devin Mitchell,
who was in charge of the state'sdebt credit rating or state's
debt management at the timecredit rating, went to Wall
Street and said don't worryabout not having enough revenues
, we'll just start cutting PFDs.
(24:37):
And for a period of time 2017,2018, 2019, 2020, the credit
rating sort of rocked alongbecause Wall Street said, okay,
we hear you, but let's see ifthe legislature goes along with
that.
Let's see if they will actuallycut PFDs and if they do, then
okay, everything's fine.
(24:57):
Yes, you have a revenue sourceand you're going to be able to
pay your bills.
Don't worry about it.
But there was a lot ofskepticism rightly so up in New
York about whether the statewould do a self-inflicted wound
like that.
Going back to the first segmentfor a moment whether the state
would self would would do aself-inflicted wound like that
uh, going back to the firstsegment for a moment.
If, whether the state would doa self-inflicted wound of using
pfd cuts to, uh to to pay bills.
(25:19):
Once we established that we didthat, we would.
Once devon convinced them thatthat's what we were going to do,
the walker administration wasgoing to do it and once it, once
the legislature got on a rolland started doing it, the
state's credit rating started toclimb.
So Adam Crum takes credit forhighlighting his accomplishments
(25:40):
, including boosting the state'scredit rating to the highest
it's been in years.
It's not anything Adam Crum did.
It's the continuation of whatDevin Mitchell started.
The Walker administrationstarted when Devin Mitchell was
in charge of selling Wall Streeton water bond rating on.
It ought to be.
It was the continuation ofthose PFD cuts, and so Adam's
(26:04):
Adam Crum's you know reputationthat he's claiming is built on
the backs of middle and lowerincome Alaska families who've
had to fund government throughPFD cuts instead of using other
approaches.
That's the rest of the storyfor Adam Crum.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
Well, and before you jump into it, do you think that
that is such an amorphous thingto stand behind?
I mean, I don't think theaverage Alaskan gives two craps
about whether or not the creditrating of the state is pristine
or not.
Right, it's just such a weirdthing to brag about.
I saw that in one of his othercommentaries.
Oh, you know, he under histutelage, the blah, blah, blah
(26:43):
and the credit, and I'm likewhat, what average Alaskan cares
about the credit rating of thestate?
We want a fiscal plan.
We want to know that there'sgoing to be stability.
We want to know that oureconomies are going to be
bolstered.
Who cares about it?
To me it was such a weird thingto highlight, but again, he has
(27:07):
so few accomplishments he's gotto hang on to anything that he
can put his hat on at this point.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
That's the deal.
There's nothing else.
I mean Crum hasn't helpedcontribute to resolving our
fiscal situation.
He hasn't helped implement thelegislature's 2021 fiscal policy
working group agenda.
He hasn't helped push forwardon in fact, he's gone in the
reverse on oil revenues and hehasn't helped push forward on
modernizing oil revenuesrevenues he has.
(27:34):
He as a member of the permanentfund board.
He hasn't pushed for investmentpolicies that would boost the
pomb.
He hasn't done anything else.
So he's grabbing onto this onething that really comes out of
the walker administration.
He's grabbing onto this onething as as his highlight,
because that's really all thathe's got and it's just, it's
(27:55):
just humorous to listen to himtalk about it.
All right, tom Begich here.
Here's.
Here's the rest of the story onthe Tom Begich statement.
Tom Begich announced that he'srunning for governor in the in
the APRN in the Alaska publicmedia article on Begich's
announcement.
I didn't see this any placeelse, but APRN picks it up.
(28:16):
So the main reason he's running, he said, is to reverse what he
sees as state stagnation.
He emphasized the need to boosteducation funding and to raise
state revenues from corporatetaxes, trimming oil tax credits
and the like.
He says $500 million in newstate revenues within easy reach
.
That's just agreeing aboutthose things that make sense.
(28:37):
None of those things cost anindividual Alaskan anything.
So the rest of the story onthat is I mean, this is like
Elise Galvin when she says, oh,I've got a solution and I've got
an income tax.
Is like Elise Galvin when shesays, oh, I've got a solution
and I've got an income tax.
When you look at it it's thisvery thin layer of raising
(28:58):
revenues built on the backs ofPFD cuts.
So we've got about a billionseven.
A billion eight depends uponwhat oil prices are at the time.
We're facing about a billionseven billion eight, 8, um uh
deficit over the next uh 10years.
Average deficit over the next10 years.
Baggage is 500 million.
Wouldn't raise even a third ofthat, wouldn't solve even a
(29:20):
third um of the of the problem.
Fiscal policy working group sayswe've got to raise some
revenues.
We've got to raise some oilrevenues.
We've got to do spending cuts,we've got to cap spending.
We've got to do a lot of things.
All Begich has picked up on isthe oh, we got to raise some
revenues and that $500 millionwouldn't even cover a third of
(29:41):
the deficit that we're running.
What's sitting underneath that?
How does he do the rest of that?
Continuous PFD cuts?
I mean, if you're not talkingabout a full solution to the
billion seven billion eightproblem, if you're not talking
about a comprehensive solutionto that problem, you're only
talking about a piece of thesolution.
(30:03):
The rest of it.
What you're saying implicitly isthe rest of it's going to be
covered by the way we've beencovering it through is through
PFD cuts.
So the rest of the story onBegich yes, he's got a fiscal
plan.
Yes, he's going to be coveredby the way we've been covering
it through is through pfd cuts.
So the rest of the story onbaggage yeah, yes, he's got,
he's got a fiscal plan.
Yes, he's going to raise somerevenue, less than a third of
the deficits that we're facing.
Uh, yes, he's going to raisesome revenues.
But what the part he's notsaying the rest of the story is?
(30:25):
It's based upon, it's built onpfd cuts.
It's built on continuing themost regressive tax ever
proposed.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
Right, and it doesn't touch but even a third of the
current deficit projected.
And that's even before we getinto last week's discussion of
the IEA and EIA and thepotential for, you know, $2
billion in deficits.
If you include the supplementaland everything else, I mean
it's going to be significant.
It wouldn't even hardly be adrop in the bucket on that, but
(30:56):
he's uh, he's going to talkabout that and that's a.
You know, that's a valid andinteresting point.
You know, what I foundinteresting about that article
my kind of rest of the storytake on this is that he's he's
basically just a placeholder.
He admits it in there.
He's basically just aplaceholder.
He admits it in there.
He's basically just aplaceholder.
Because the article mentionsthat Mary Peltola is the last
Democrat to win a statewide race, but that she hadn't announced
(31:19):
whether she was running for anyoffice.
And he said well, I've alwaystold her and I'd say this to you
if she were to get in the race,I wouldn't need to be in this
race.
She'd be in the race, but I'min the race, and that is the
difference.
He's basically, I'm just a, I'mjust a placeholder.
I'm just a placeholder of the,which I thought was interesting
as well.
On top of all that, I'm justhere to fill, I'm just here to
(31:40):
warm the seat until Mary decideswhat she wants to do, which is,
you know, some irony there aswell.
All right, finish up the restof the story, brad, before we
move on to number three here.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
Well, no, that is the rest of the story.
The rest of the story iswhenever anybody's going to come
to you during this campaigncycle Begich and others saying
I've got a solution to thefiscal problems, and it's X.
In Begich's case, it's $500million of new revenues.
I've got a solution to thefiscal problem and it's X.
Keep in mind the rest of thestory is okay.
(32:12):
The whole is $1.7 billion, $1.8billion, $2 billion, depending
upon the oil price of the day.
The whole is that.
Are they talking about asolution that encompasses,
comprehensively solves the $2billion problem, $1.7 billion
problem?
Are they talking about asolution that comprehensively
(32:33):
solves that?
If they aren't, there's a restof the story.
And the rest of the story isthey're really talking about PFD
cuts to fill the.
Speaker 2 (32:41):
To fill the remainder Right, because, again, but even
if they took the whole PFD, westill don't have them.
I mean, come on, this is thisis getting down to the point of
where, if you generated 500million more and took all the
pfd, you still wouldn't haveenough at this point.
Uh, because it's only another600 million on the pf, you're
still only at 1.1 billion.
You're still short.
(33:01):
Continuing.
Now, brad keithley, alaskansfor sustainable budgets, weekly
top three kind of a differentchange of pace for our top three
this week.
Uh, now we, now we've got a.
Uh.
His final thoughts is animportant life, a memoriam, uh,
Brad.
So give us your thoughts hereon uh, on, uh, on, on what's
happening here.
Give us the, give us, give ussome insight here.
Speaker 1 (33:23):
Well, steve Haycox, uh, who was who?
Um was a long time universityof Alaska Anchorage professor of
history and someone who I'veadmired greatly past this last
week, and I, and I want to, Iwant to note how significant I
think Haycox is and howsignificant he will continue to
(33:46):
be through the, through thebooks he wrote and through the
articles he uh, he, he published.
When I came to Alaska, Istarted digging into Alaska.
There were four people really,uh, who had written a lot about
Alaska, who I really spent a lotof time um uh, studying and
reading and getting to know uhin some sense uh with with each
(34:08):
of them.
Um, steve Haycox was one notedAlaska historian.
Scott Goldsmith, who we'vetalked about a lot on the show
over the years, a former retiredemeritus professor at
University of Alaska, anchorageon economics, headed ICER for a
while, wrote some great stuffback in the late 2000s and early
(34:30):
20 teens on sustainable budgetsreally sort of the genesis of
the Alaskans for SustainableBudgets was another one I've
written, I've read a lot.
Jack Roderick, who former mayorof first mayor of the Unified
Anchorage Borough maybe, but aformer mayor of Anchorage at
least but more importantly, alongtime oil and gas lawyer,
(34:55):
wrote a book called Crude Dreamswhich to me is the best oil and
gas book ever written aboutAlaska.
Described the beginning of theAlaska oil age.
Jack was there and describedthe development over the years
and I think has some terrificinsights.
And then Terrence Cole, who wasprofessor of history, sort of
(35:17):
Steve Haycox's counterpart atUAF University of Alaska,
fairbanks, and also Dermot'sbrother twin brother, terrence
Cole historian.
I read a lot of his stuff butHaycox had a huge influence on
how I've come to understandAlaska.
He wrote four books.
One was called A Warm PastTravels in Alaska History
(35:43):
Interesting sort of view ofvarious times in Alaska history.
The second was Alaska andAmerican colony which really
outlines, I think, his view thatAlaska has, has, was and
remained, remains in manyrespects a colony of, of, of of
(36:04):
America rather than rather thana full-fledged state, frigid
embrace politics, economics andEnvironment in Alaska, which I
thought was a great way ofunderstanding, another way of
understanding the oil industryand Battleground Alaska,
fighting Federal Power inAlaska's, in America's Last
(36:24):
Wilderness.
Those were the books and a lotlike Scott Goldsmith's stuff on
economics books and a lot likeScott Goldsmith's stuff on
economics, haycox's stuff onhistory I think really helped me
(36:45):
understand the fundamentals ofAlaska history and the forces
and the dynamics at work inAlaska history, not only in
Alaska, not uh today.
And so I, really I, I, I want tonote um uh, steve's passing and
and talk about it in the senseof just just mention this, in
the sense of not only, not only,you know, highlighting Steve uh
(37:07):
as as as with his passing, but,but, but noting that Steve will
continue to live on in terms of, in terms of the things he's
written in theN over the years.
He was a semi-regularcontributor.
He and John Havelock weresemi-contributor uh,
(37:35):
semi-regular contributors to theuh, to the ADN, and one piece
he wrote in 2018 that I thatI've kept sort of if, if I, if I
kept these things on paper,it'd be yellow sheeted by now.
It'd be turning at the edges.
But, uh, one of one of thepieces he wrote back in 2018,
while we were still in the earlyPFD wars, he wrote an op-ed
(37:58):
piece and it says Alaska isstill an economic colony.
The legislature's action on thepermanent fund earnings prove it
.
And basically the theme of theessay was look, alaska says it's
self-reliant, but it's reallynot.
It turns to the federalgovernment for money to fund its
(38:20):
operations, a point where thestate funding is low.
Rather than raise money broadly, or rather than raise money by
going back and looking at theoil industry or looking at our
other resource industries, we'restarting to take it out of the
pockets of Alaskans, the verypeople that we're trying to,
(38:45):
that we're trying to claim areself-reliant.
Down toward the end of thecolumn he says this the
designers of the AlaskaPermanent Fund hope to wrest
more of the benefit from theexploitation of Alaska's
resources for the people ofAlaska and at the same time
somewhat mitigate the effects ofour economic dependency.
(39:05):
As the fund was made part of theConstitution, the corpus cannot
be appropriated by thelegislature, but the dividend
program drawn annually from theearnings of the fund is how all
Al has now diverted into statecoffers for general
appropriation, created a statedependency, created dependency
created, created a dependency onthe state government for their
(39:26):
livelihood.
Would it please the designersof the fund that the state
legislature has now divertedinto state coffers for general
appropriation a large portion ofwhat used to be the people's
(39:48):
direct benefit?
No Exclamation point.
Exclamation point generalappropriation a large part
portion of what used to be thepeople's direct benefit no
exclamation point.
Exclamation point.
Former jay, former governor jayhammond, said clearly that the
funds earnings should go to thepeople's hands, not the
legislatures.
This is at a time when, whenyou know, the debate was on
about whether we ought to justgive up on the pfd and let the
state have or go forward, andthat was a, that was a steve.
(40:09):
Haycox's words were a keyturning point for me in saying
no, we ought to continue thefight for the PFD.
So the man lived a great life,but his words lived on.
If you haven't read the books,read them.
If you haven't read the essays,read them.
He had.
He just has a huge amount ofinsight.
He's had a huge amount ofinsight about the state.
Speaker 2 (40:27):
Yeah, and I mean some of his articles especially.
You know that one talkingspecifically about you know this
is what the framers intended ofthe Constitution and then this
is what the architects of thepermanent fund intended, and you
could see it right there.
I mean, anybody who has anydoubt about what's being done
(40:50):
and what's been done to thepermanent fund says Bill Walker
understands that people likeHammond would be outraged that
this is what's going on, and hemakes that point, I think, very
well in some of his pieces andsome of his articles.
And it's like you said.
It's kind of sad that we'velost that, that voice,
especially from an academicstandpoint, of being able to go
back and look at history.
But the lessons are still there.
The lessons are still there tobe learned.
Speaker 1 (41:12):
They are.
They are.
And the thing about the PFDthat struck me so much, he put
it in a historical context.
It's look, alaskans have been acolony.
They've been dependent onsomebody like forever, and we've
been an American colony.
We've been dependent on thefederal government and this was
a turning point.
I mean, what Hickok saw is thiswas a turning point in Alaska.
(41:35):
Are we going to continue to bedependent on somebody or are we
going to allow self-sufficiency,at least this step towards
self-sufficiency, to exist?
And his point was look, nowwe're turning everybody into
dependent on the state.
You've talked about dependencya lot and this is what I mean.
Haycox was putting this in thehistorical context and saying
(41:57):
look, this is a watershed event,that we are now creating
another dependency on the state.
Instead of allowing Alaskans tobe self-reliant and giving them
the resources to beself-reliant, we're turning them
into another dependency on thestate.
And instead of allowingAlaskans to be self-reliant and
giving them the resources to beself-reliant, we're turning them
into another dependency on thestate.
Speaker 2 (42:13):
Well, rest in peace.
Stephen Haycox brought a lot ofgood information out there and
again, he's going to live on andyou could find his books out
there, I'm sure, and his opinionpieces in the ADN.
I remember reading that piecefrom Haycox where he was
specifically talking about that.
You know, the no like the bigno like this is not what they
(42:34):
would have wanted and this isnot what they intended.
And yet we continue to seethese actions from our
legislators and we just go.
Guys, you're missing the wholepoint here.
You're missing the whole point,and it's painful.
Those that fail to learn thelessons of history are doomed to
repeat them.
And it's painful those thatfail to learn the lessons of
history are doomed to repeatthem.
And that's where we're at rightnow, yeah, they grab the.
Speaker 1 (42:56):
I mean, there's a lot of things you can say about
that 2017, 2018, 2019 period,but they grabbed the easy thing.
They didn't do the hard work.
They didn't dig in and do thehard work that Alaska needed at
that point.
They could because, sort oflike your stockbroker, right I
(43:18):
mean?
Or sort of like your financialadvisor, the funds come through
him in a way, on their way toyou.
They're your funds, they areset aside for you, they're held
in trust for you as they comethrough your stockbroker, but
they come through his fingers.
And the permanent fund dividendcomes through the fingers of
(43:39):
the legislature.
And rather than let that flowthrough, as the statute provided
, rather than allow theadditional support of
self-sufficiency that thefathers envisioned, the
legislature just did the easything and just took those funds,
(43:59):
just diverted those funds intoits own pocket.
Speaker 2 (44:01):
Yeah, well, I've made the analogy before, I think, to
Randy, where I said you knowit's like a money market fund,
you know market managers wherethey just decide to take all of
the dividend that you would havereceived as a shareholder
because their expenses were up.
And you'd be like, hey, wait,wait, wait, a second, you're
taking all my, you're taking allof my dividend, all the money
(44:22):
that's owed me because yourexpenses are up.
That's a problem.
I don't care if you thinkyou're benefiting me or not.
I think that's a problem.
Up, that's a problem.
I don't care if you thinkyou're benefiting me or not.
I think that's a problem.
And I think it's a validargument that you know we should
be looking at that and goingwell, wait a second, wait a
second, give us the money.
And this goes back to my oldanalogy of you know, I think we
should just all get.
I think we should get all themoney directly.
(44:43):
Stop giving it directly to thestate, right, just give it all
to us directly.
We'll all get a check for20,000 bucks a piece and then
when they issue that tax billthe next week for 18,500 a piece
, there would be some, therewould be a reckoning, right,
there would be a reckoning oflike whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa,
(45:11):
whoa.
Wait a second, I just got 20grand and you want, you want 18,
five of it to to fund whateverwe.
We need to look at somethinghere.
I mean, it would come to ascreeching halt in this state.
Speaker 1 (45:16):
Yeah, the reason Haycox resonated so much with me
on that piece is in a formerlife, as an oil and gas lawyer
down in the lower 48, I hadrepresented family trusts in
connection with family truststhat were created to handle oil
royalties and, and the way theywere structured was, the oil
(45:36):
royalties came into the trust.
Um, uh, they were invested.
Uh, some of them some of themwere were flowed through.
There were trust instructionson how to flow it through, but
the portion that wasn't flowedthrough was invested.
Sounds familiar, doesn't it?
And the trust provided that thedollars would go out on a
per-person basis, equally on aper-person basis, to all the
(45:59):
members of the family.
That was the family trust.
The PFD is nothing more.
Or the permanent fund isstructured the same as that.
It's structured in the same wayas the old family trust down in
the lower 48.
And you would never even thinkin the lower 48, you would never
even think of saying, oh well,a portion of this goes to the
state, a portion of this goes tosomeone disproportionately.
(46:23):
It's the way the trust was setup and that's what the permanent
fund statute is.
It's the trust rules, it's theprovisions of the trust that
describes how the benefits areto be distributed.
It is so analogous to a lower48 family oil and gas trust,
royalty trust.
(46:43):
I mean, to me it was just ohwell, that's obvious.
Somebody was really thinkingthrough the provisions and and
so Haycox comes along and sayslook, this is a way we were
going to provideself-sufficiency, this is a way
we're going to provide for, youknow, to get off government, to
get off reliance on thegovernment, dependency on the
government.
It was Hammond's vision andothers' vision that this was a
(47:05):
step to make Alaskansindependent.
And here we go.
You know, we're an American,we've been a US colony because
of dependency on the federalgovernment.
Now we're creating anotherdependency on the state, on
state funding, by allowing themto, you know, take these funds
(47:27):
and deprive them of, cut themoff and withhold them and divert
them from the pockets of Alaskafamilies.
It was a great insight.
That essay was a great insightinto the historical significance
of that decision.
Michael, could we use thissegment?
I'll talk about it more nextweek, but could we use this
(47:47):
segment to give a shout out toMike Kronk?
Speaker 2 (47:48):
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.
I saw that article and I waslike, wow, that's some
interesting stuff right therethat he seems to.
Maybe he's listening.
Maybe all of our chatter aboutthis is finally starting to get
through, because he actually istalking about some of the things
(48:09):
that we've been talking abouton the show for sure.
Speaker 1 (48:12):
So yesterday was the first meeting of the Legislative
Task Force Right and the ADNhas an article on it.
The headline is AlaskaLawmakers Convene an Education
Funding Task Force.
The ADN article is you know,80% of it is we need more, we
need more, we need more.
And all the legislators aresaying, oh, we need more funding
(48:36):
for this, we need more fundingfor that school funding task.
The task force is on fundingand basically it was just we
need more of it.
But Kronk at the end had Kronkat the end of this article is
quoted in and, I think, a greatinsight.
Cronk, a former school teacher,pointed to one looming factor
not within the task force'spurview the state fiscal plan.
(48:56):
For years, most lawmakers haveagreed that the state is not
bringing enough revenue to payfor all the services that
Alaska's expect, includingpublic schools.
Fiscal plan working groupconvened in 2021, brought
together a bipartisan group oflawmakers to discuss specific
questions, much like theeducation task force seeks to do
now, but most of the fiscalplan recommendations were never
adopted.
This is a quote from Kronk.
(49:18):
We need to create a fiscal planfor this state so we're not
doing what we're doing everysingle year fighting over which
funds do we take from somewhereelse to fund something else,
said Kroc.
If we're talking about funding,that should be our goal as part
of this, and I think that's ahuge insight.
Look, the task force is focusingon one piece of the state's
(49:42):
goals or one piece of thestate's problem the education
funding, k through 12 funding.
But you can't do that inisolation, because you solve
education and you've justcreated a problem someplace else
.
You can't do one piece of thiswithout having the overarching
plan of how you do fiscal policy, having fiscal policy resolved
(50:05):
as a whole, or else you're just,you know, stealing from one to
pay another, just digging thehole deeper in order to build a
bigger mountain.
It's.
You can't do this in isolation.
And Cronk Cronk making thatpoint during the task force, I
think is an excellent way ofhighlighting this issue and
(50:25):
getting that issue on the tableand keeping that issue on the
table.
So I hope, I hope Senator Cronkcontinues to do that, I hope
Representative Rutledge, who'sthe other Republican on the task
force, picks it up and repeats.
That, amplifies it and I hopeit starts getting through to the
other members of the task force.
You can't do this in isolation.
Speaker 2 (50:46):
Right Rough ridge there.
Yeah, no, I think that it was.
It was refreshing to see,especially in such a short
article, they were actually ableto fit that, you know, actually
put that in there at the endand I was like, wow, maybe
somebody is actually hearingwhat we've been saying this
whole time.
Or coming, finally, comingaround to the same conclusion.
You can't just keep doing whatyou've been doing and expect
(51:09):
that there's going to bedifferent results.
Uh, on that for sure, um, andagain, the fact that we keep
looking to these folks who, um,whose soul, whose sole answer
seems to be again, the edgemanthing of, well, we just need to
spend more, that'll fix it.
The more we spend, the betterit'll get.
Um, unfortunately, you know,eventually, once they've taken
(51:31):
all of the PFD and once they'vetaken whatever 500 million that
baggage is talking about anddone all this other stuff,
they're going to come to thesame conclusion and and
basically say, well, we've gotto find more money somewhere
we're going to, we're going tosee those taxes some way shape
or form, and we best be having aconversation about it before it
(51:53):
gets to that point.
Speaker 1 (51:54):
Yeah and you can't.
I mean, they're going to comeup with whatever they're going
to come up with.
The task force is going to comeup with whatever the task force
is going to come up with, butit's just going to be about K
through 12.
And so K through 12 is going tohave this status of having a
task force about it and they'llsay, oh, we need more funding
here and more funding there.
We need to change the formulahere and change the formula
(52:14):
there, crowding out somethingelse along the way.
You've got to have theoverarching architecture of how
you're going to do your fiscalplan and then fit K through 12
inside that, just as you fit theother pieces inside it, just as
you fit infrastructure, just asyou fit transportation, just as
(52:35):
you fit the other pieces insideit.
You've got to have that overallarchitecture before you do any
part of it.
So I think Kronk has done agreat service by raising that
issue.
I hope he continues it duringthe subsequent meetings and I
hope Representative Ruffridgeechoes it as they keep on going.
Speaker 2 (52:53):
We'll have to see.
We'll have to see if somebody,if there's maybe light in the
foxhole, we'll have to see whathappens here.
All right, brad?
Well, good stuff.
Thank you for coming on board.
As always, it's great to talkwith you and we look forward to
next and again, the upcomingelection season.
I just um, I'm, I'm kind of Idon't even know.
I'm trying to brace myself.
(53:14):
Gertrude, that's what I'mtrying to do try to brace myself
for what's coming well, it'llbe great.
Speaker 1 (53:19):
It'll be great stuff for rest of the story segments
oh yeah, absolutely that.
Speaker 2 (53:23):
We'll be doing two or three of those segments a week.
Absolutely all right.
Brad, thanks so much for comingon board.
We appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (53:30):
Michael, as always, thanks for having me.
Well, that's a wrap for anotherweek's edition of the weekly
top three from Alaskans forSustainable Budgets.
Thank you again for joining us.
Remember that you can find pastepisodes on our YouTube,
soundcloud, spotify and Substackpages and keep track of us
during the week on Facebook andTwitter.
This has been Brad Keith,managing director of Alaskans
(53:56):
for Sustainable Budgets.
We look forward to you joiningus again next week on the Weekly
Top Three.
Thank you,
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