My last three commentaries took on three fiscal questions that Alaskans are asking themselves a lot right now.
Do Alaskans need to be re-educated to handle the budget deficit without raiding the Alaska Permanent Fund? No, Alaskans understand they would each lose $1,000 of their dividend next year and maybe more in the future. Are there alternate sources of cash for bridging the fiscal gap? Definitely. We have more funds than necessary to bridge the fiscal gap in fiscal years 2017, 2018 and 2019. With a majority vote, $18 billion is available today to cover this year's $3.5 billion. Are the oft-repeated and continual predictions of an Alaska recession true? No. False narratives of doom and gloom are spread to cause panic, to create a crisis so that spenders can raid your Permanent Fund dividend and rush the plan through the Legislature.
But wait, what happens if the spending elites and power players win? This is where real Alaskans, like Joe Sixpack, his wife Amy and their kids come in. And come in they will. With a vengeance. Joe and his fellow employed, hardworking Alaskans have two things figured out.
1. Joe and Amy understand that cutting his and Amy's dividends and his three kids' will cost them $5,000 in cash in October.
That's hard green spending money, down payment on a snowmachine, a fill-up-the-freezer extravaganza or the winter supply of gas for subsistence hunting. Joe can spend his money more wisely than the New York experts backing Gov. Walker's plan.
2. Joe and Amy understand that the PFD is their money.
At statehood, Joe, Amy and other Alaskans made a deal to give up their ownership rights to underground mineral wealth and future income, to hold those assets jointly. The PFD is their return on investment. Joe is getting his sharpshooter ready just in case the bad guys sneak this PFD raid through in the dead of legislative night. He and his buds are talking about a referendum to rescind any legislative or executive changes to the way the PFD is calculated.
Not much will get Joe away from his favorite Stanley Cup playoff team, but stealing his family's dividends to continue bloated government he neither wants nor needs will bring him in with full fury. His anger is growing online, on talk shows and in newly sprouted websites to "stop the raid."
Millions are being spent on push polls with artfully drawn questions meant to convince you that the spenders' save-the-dividend plan is required, necessary and must pass now. But Joe and his sidekicks have the horse sense to recognize a Soapy Smith flim-flam when they see it. Cutting the dividend in half while telling people that you are saving the dividend is a whopper. The dividend won't go away unless legislators vote to spend it. And they know what happens then.
Joe knows the state doesn't need the money.
Joe and his family want three things from state government. The late Sen. Ted Stevens called these his three rules of politics: one, give your word, keep your word; two, learn to count votes, and take out those who vote against you; and three, don't tick off the ladies. Applying that, the Sixpack family will conclude three things:
1. State government made a deal on the PFD. Keep it.
2. If the governor or legislators vote for tinkering with the dividend, we'll vote them out of office.
3. Ladies are the real power in Alaska politics.
Amy Sixpack thinks politicians, like doctors, should do no harm, especially to her family. She's not buying the elites' justification for stealing $5,000 from the family budget for someone else's public good. The campaign to take away the Sixpack family fortune, meager that it is, is understood, will be countered and could result in a lot of new faces in Juneau.
Gov. Walker's campaign to cut the dividend in half while calling it a plan to "Save the Dividend" earns the top Soapy Smith "manure meter" award. The duplicity is an indictment of politics.
Joe and Amy can see that the only way to save the dividend is to constitutionally protect it. Then these politicians will face the full power of Alaska's people if they go astray. And if the elites' plan goes through, the resulting referendum campaign will educate a new generation of elected officials about what the people require in the future management of our Alaska Permanent Fund.
Jim Crawford is a lifelong Alaskan, former coordinator of Alaska offices for U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens and chairman of the Alaska Republican Party. He is a real estate broker residing in Anchorage with his wife, Terri. He says the Crawfords' fourth generation of Alaskans motivates his impassioned, continued involvement in Alaska political issues.
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