It's time to end the Permanent Fund dividend check in Alaska

By Dan Fagan
Publisher
The Alaska Standard

The idea of paying every man, woman, and child a dividend check each year from the average earnings of the Alaska Permanent Fund is the possibly one of the worst public policies since the inception of this country’s great republic.

(And yes smart-ass, I do deposit my check every year. If you can’t get past the idea of me arguing against a policy while at the same time benefitting from it then you better stop reading now.)

Now ultra left wing pandering Democrats Hollis French and Harry Crawford want to enshrine this wealth redistribution program in the Alaska constitution.

You say Dan, you believe the Alaska Permanent Fund dividend program is wealth redistribution? If French and Crawford have their way it will be.

The reality of the situation in Alaska is our current governor and members of the Alaska legislature lack the political courage to open our state up for business again. Our current high taxes will prematurely end the life of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline meaning we will have to find a new way to fund state government.

The 34 billion dollar permanent fund comes to mind. This is of course what the founders of the fund envisioned. When oil revenue dropped off, the fund would help pick up the slack.

French and Crawford have a different idea. They say drawing money from the dividend should be dead last on the list for how to balance the budget. Even if that list includes an income tax.

Here comes the wealth redistribution part. If French and Crawford have their way, we will see a day in Alaska when the government will demand a portion of your salary in the form of an income tax so it can then give free checks to every man woman and child in the state.

Keep in mind only half of Americans pay income tax and the same would be true with a state income tax. So while the Alaska government comes in and takes a portion of our income from half of us, it then uses that same money to redistribute (there’s that word) to every man woman and child. Karl Marx, and Barack Obama would be proud.

Mr. Crawford seems to have no problem with this idea seeing he’s a socialist. He says if we don’t enshrine the dividend check poor people will suffer.

"That's the most regressive tax we could come up with, to take money from the PFD. Because it hits people at the bottom so much harder than it hits the people at the top. ... There are thousands of Alaskans that are going to be cold and hungry if we were to take away the PFD." Crawford said.

Cold and hungry? Yeah there are no programs in place other than the dividend check to help the cold and hungry in Alaska? Crawford’s statement is so silly, absurd, and outrageous he insults the intelligence of the general public.

Some will argue the money from the permanent fund belongs to us because it’s our oil and we should receive the benefits from the oil, not state government. I agree. So let’s use some of the fund to rebate taxpayers in the state.

For example, if you pay property taxes, let’s take a portion of the fund to rebate the money you paid in property taxes. After all you earned the money you paid in property taxes and if the government can afford it, it should refund the money you earned.

The problem with the French, Crawford plan is it ignores the value of earning. It promotes wealth redistribution.

When Sarah Palin handed out almost one billion dollars in free cash to Alaskans a couple of years ago I knew then and there she had no concept of the value of earning and the destructive nature of free money. Her fundamental understanding of conservative thought was weak and misguided.

Tax rebate? Yes, all day, anytime, anyplace, anywhere. Free money? Only if it is used to help the truly helpless.

It’s time we end the notion in Alaska there is a free lunch. There isn’t. Or least there shouldn’t be. Every dime you receive, someone at some point earned it. If you didn’t earn it, then someone else did. And that means the money you get that you didn’t earn doesn’t belong to you unless it was given to you directly and voluntarily by the person who earned it. 

If the government forcefully took it from someone and gave it to you, it doesn't belong to you.