OPINION: Brace yourselves, Alaskans — the Legislature is back in session

Even with the season’s longer days and promises of rebirth, a spring only weeks, er, months away, there is a malaise on the land, an incessant, unreachable itch, an inner voice whispering, “Uh-oh!” The second session of Alaska’s 33rd Legislature, God help us all, is in session — and it is an election year.

Editorialists, pundits of all stripes and the chattering classes are atwitter. It is their annual moment to shine. They will wonder again, “Hey, what about a fiscal plan or the Permanent Fund and its dividend?” They will actually believe, at least for awhile, the new bunch is not the same as the old bunch.

The real question, as always, is whether the body’s members will accomplish anything noteworthy before traipsing home months from now. If past election-year sessions are any guide, the answer is: Do not hold your breath.

A lack of progress could be bad news. As a state, we are running smack out of time to craft some sort of fiscal plan — one that does not require spending every penny we can shake out of the couch — and decide what role the Permanent Fund and its dividend will play in this brave new world. This, after all, is not 1980, when oil revenue cascaded into the state treasury by the billions and being an elected official here meant never having to say no. There was so much dough, lawmakers killed the state’s income tax.

In the late 1980s, when the trans-Alaska oil pipeline was moving 2 million barrels of crude each and every day, oil revenues paid for more than 90% of state government. Nowadays, Alaska must depend on its goat-choking $75 billion Permanent Fund to pay for government, just as it was designed to do.

The bottom line is we are taking in less money to deal with too much spending — and we are determined to have a dividend. The resulting chronic red ink is threatening our fiscal well-being and we have made it worse by allowing, even demanding, lawmakers siphon billions from our savings accounts along the way to pay for wants rather than needs, leaving those pots of money nearly dry. All that profligate spending now threatens our sacrosanct Permanent Fund dividend itself.

During an Alaska Permanent Fund board of trustees meeting in July, CEO Deven Mitchell warned that under the right conditions, the fund’s Earnings Reserve Account, money used to pay the dividend and government operations, could dry up by 2027. To counter that, trustees would merge the earnings reserve into the constitutionally protected fund, except for the annual percent-of-market-value draw — 5% annually in recent years. Disbursement from the fund would be formulaic and set in law, ending the incessant warfare among those seeking to curry political favor with larger dividends, or hold them hostage to influence legislative outcomes.

Almost anybody could have seen today’s problems coming, even 40 years ago when the Legislature moronically bought into handing out free money, which quickly became a tail-wagging-the-dog situation. In a flash, it became an entitlement and even spawned talk more than once of ensconcing it in the state constitution. That, of course, would have meant dividends even when there was no other state government left.

What would we do about Alaska’s other constitutional obligations, funding retirees and education, for instance? Would an enshrined dividend take precedence? The silliness of it all almost leaves you breathless.

Count me among those who love the dividend. It is free money, a deliciously guilty pleasure like rich, dark chocolate, but we all get a check only to ensure our politicians do not steal the entire fund.

Despite that, if it were up to me, I would kill the annual payout dead, dead, dead. It would be nice to stuff the genie back in the bottle, but the dividend will outlive us all. The University of Alaska’s Institute for Social and Economic Research tells us the dividend is an integral part of Alaska’s economy and a financial cornerstone for many Alaskans. Doing away with it could be calamitous on many levels.

Instead of starting over, we are left to hope for political leadership that understands Alaska cannot go forward constantly fighting over the dividend and wandering in a budgetary morass with no fiscal map. The endless budget battles and internecine fights over the dividend only slows progress in areas such as energy, health care, infrastructure and education.

Of course, I have grown too cynical to believe much will change as long as there is one dollar left to fight over. Politicians, being the crass, self-serving bunch they can be, disappoint more than surprise. There is only one thing to say when they annually descend on Juneau: Uh, oh!

Paul Jenkins is a former Associated Press reporter, managing editor of the Anchorage Times, an editor of the Voice of the Times and former editor of the Anchorage Daily Planet.

The views expressed here are the writer’s and are not necessarily endorsed by the Anchorage Daily News, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, email commentary(at)adn.com. Send submissions shorter than 200 words to letters@adn.com or click here to submit via any web browser. Read our full guidelines for letters and commentaries here.