Paul Fuhs: Anchorage Daily News article about Sen. Sullivan is beyond the pale

By PAUL FUHS

I was really disappointed in the recent Anchorage Daily News article on what they called Sen. Dan Sullivan’s efforts to “rebrand” what the Big Beautiful Bill (which he calls the Alaska Opportunity Bill) means to Alaska. Why would rebranding be necessary?

While the article cites some of the many benefits of the bill for Alaska, it also references two polls that indicate that half of Alaskans think the bill is bad for Alaska.  How does this happen?

The news reporter states that, “The bill is laden with new oil and gas leases in the Arctic and Cook Inlet…”, but then states, support has waned because “the flow in the metaphorical pipeline connecting oil revenue to Alaskans’ pockets has slowed to a trickle.”

This is apparently a reference to the reduced value of permanent fund dividends, and if Alaskans believe this is their only connection to oil development, this represents a real problem.  The author doesn’t’ point it out, but annual oil revenue and the proceeds from the oil revenue based Permanent Fund, pays for almost every basic service the state provides to Alaskans, including schools, snow plowing, police, courts and prisons, airports, water and sewer, and alternative energy projects.  These touch Alaskan’s lives everyday.

The article primarily focuses on the issues related to medicaid and SNAP, the food stamp program and their newly required work requirements.  What does this have to do with oil and gas leasing?  Although the article doesn’t mention it, oil revenues pay for the matching funds required by Medicaid, and amounted to $634 million last year.  $634 million. Does that sound like a connection?

The article itself claims that the bill “slashed funding for medicaid and the SNAP program.”  This makes it appear that these were actual cuts to the program and is a narrative that was, and continues to be peddled, by people who would like to defeat Sen. Sullivan. The Democrat Majority Fund ran ads claiming that 1/3 of Alaskans and 50% of Alaskan families will lose their health care and food stamps coverage.  The associated Indivisible fund called 350,000 Alaskans making the same claims.

This is just patently false and is the “branding” that Senator Sullivan is responding to.

One of the worst examples cited in the article is an ad run by Native Movement with a statement from a senior Athabascan woman who claims she would lose her medicaid and medicare coverage.  (you have to click on the citation to see it).

Let’s take a look at this. Medicare is the ultimate scare tactic, but the bill doesn’t even address it. In addition, the bill exempts from the work requirements, Alaska Natives wherever they live, seniors, anyone with children, pregnant women, those with disabilities or substance abuse disorders, and anyone already working or volunteering for the community. In other words, it is impossible for this woman to lose her coverage. The reporter fails to correct these falsehoods.

Senators Lisa Murkowski and Sullivan also had the votes for additional protections for Alaskans, but Democrat Minority Leader Schumer called it the “Polar payoff” and then officially asked the Senate Parliamentarian to declare them illegal and had them removed from the bill.

Is it any wonder then that people have a negative view of the bill after all this ‘branding’?  And in a clear admission that the narrative is completely political, the Athabascan elder then says, “This is as ridiculous as Trump.”

In actuality, the reductions in funding for medicaid and SNAP are projections of how many people will not want to work or volunteer and also from people who upon review of their cases will have been found to be making enough money to make them ineligible.  Every single person who is eligible will not lose their coverage.  Therefore, it is really unknown how much the reductions will actually be.

The issue of tax cuts has also been raised with a narrative that they were continued to benefit only rich people.  The bill actually maintained tax cuts for working people as well.  Was it fair?  I will let you judge.  According to the IRS, the top 10% of Americans pay 76% of collected federal taxes.  The bottom 50% pay 3%.  I don’t have a personal stake in this, as they say, “I got old before I got rich”.

The bill also includes important appropriations for Alaska’s military and the Coast Guard including financing for long over due icebreakers and the reopening of Adak in the critical IndoPacific security zone.  These federal appropriations amount to about 30% of Alaska’s economy.

All the above are government related issues. On the private side, oil development accounts for about 40% of Alaska’s economy and jobs.  While it will take awhile for these developments to occur, the bill also includes accelerated permitting and locks these leases in statute so they cannot be overturned by a new administration as President Biden did with 70 Alaska specific Executive Orders that Senator Sullivan called the “War on Alaska.” This bodes well for Alaska’s future.

Sen. Sullivan is doing the right thing by making the actual facts of this bill known to Alaskans.  The article itself could have done a much better job in bringing them out.

Paul Fuhs is a 70 year resident of Alaska and former Mayor of Dutch Harbor and Alaska Commissioner of Commerce and Economic Development.