Alex Gimarc: It’s not their money. Lawmakers plot to steal the last crumbs of the PFD

As the majority coalition of democrats and their sycophants among elected Republican scheme to steal the last crumbs of the Permanent Fund Dividend and start dipping into the corpus of the Alaska Permanent Fund itself via a restructure, it is important to remind Alaskans what they are losing.

We hear from elected legislators like Sen. Cathy Giessel that the PFD was not intended as something Alaskans should be able to live off.  They go on to argue loudly that the Permanent Fund was intended as a rainy-day fund, and today it is now raining.

Yet the so-called rainy day is a problem of their own making, not unlike Anchorage Mayor Suzanne LaFrance’s and the Assembly’s fiscal cliff here in Anchorage.

Giessel’s rainy day is being used as an excuse to shut down the PFD completely and start dipping into the corpus of the Permanent Fund. LaFrance’s fiscal cliff is being used as an excuse to pass 4-5 more taxes on Anchorage residents.

There are two responses to both arguments.  First and most importantly, it is not their money.  The PFD belongs to the citizens of Alaska as their share of oil, natural gas and mineral wealth that is commonly rather than privately held.  The second response is that it is none of their bloody business what Alaska citizens spend their money on.

The citizens of Alaska can spend their money much better, much more efficiently than the elected democrats and their fellow travelers among Republicans. While there will be a certain amount of personal wealth spent on sex, booze and rock and roll, the real, mind-blowing humongous waste of money in this state takes a government to do. How? Unaffordable pensions. Unaffordable public employee union contracts. Solar and wind farms. A public education system that doesn’t educate students. A state university with 17 campuses. All things they are doing today, tomorrow and next year. There are more, but you get the idea.

Want to remove the endless upward pressure on public spending? Make as much of the general public as financially well off as possible.  Somewhere along the line, we also need to move control of spending as close to the citizen as humanly possible, but that is a topic for another day (hint, vouchers).

Personal wealth increases overall safety, public and personal, and decreases the reliance on government, especially in emergencies.  The best example of this is earthquake response. This is why we here in Alaska can ride out a M 7.1 earthquake like we did in Nov 2018 with 117 injuries, no fatalities, and some fairly significant property damage while other parts of the world suffer hundreds to thousands of deaths and complete devastation in much less powerful quakes. For example a M 6.0 in Afghanistan Aug 31 killed over 2,200. Wealthy people can build better, safer structures.  And we do.

Imagine the difference in response to the typhoon blasting western Alaska a couple weeks ago if the residents had the extra $15,000 or so in their pockets that Bill Walker and democrats in the legislature stole from them over the last decade.  Some portion of that money would have been spent on hardening homes and businesses to make them safer, more resilient, and more survivable.  Not all of it, but some, probably more than the evacuation effort.

Of course, when the citizens are allowed to take care of themselves, they don’t need to vote for politicians who will steal wealth from their neighbors on their behalf, which is the whole point of the exercise from the perspective of democrats and their fellow travelers.

Bottom line is that the PFD does not belong to the legislature and it is none of their business what the citizens spend it on. Try to remember that as you hear them prattle on about artificial rainy days and manufactured fiscal cliffs during the upcoming election season.

Alex Gimarc lives in Anchorage since retiring from the military in 1997. His interests include science and technology, environment, energy, economics, military affairs, fishing and disabilities policies. His weekly column “Interesting Items” is a summary of news stories with substantive Alaska-themed topics. He was a small business owner and Information Technology professional.