Want more than $1,000 for a dividend? Start demanding taxes.

The Legislature is moving to set the Permanent Fund Dividend at $1,000 for this year, a good compromise, seeing as how the governor has refused to propose any taxes and a divided Legislature continues to struggle to do much on revenue without leadership from the executive branch.

Sean Maguire of the Anchorage Daily News has this update.

If you want higher dividends, not to mention the services a modern state requires, we need more taxes and higher taxes.

But only some of our elected officials are willing to tell the truth about this, as we’ve had generations of dumbed-down politics in Alaska.

The dividend dysfunction in Alaska starts at the top, with Gov. Mike Dunleavy, who managed to get himself elected to the state’s highest office twice with easy money hoo-hah that swindler Charles Ponzi would have been afraid to mention out loud, for fear of instant reprisal.

Most Republicans in the Legislature adhere to the Dunleavy fantasy plan, which requires a suspension of disbelief and a firm conviction that the voting audience consists entirely of boobs.

Reps. Alyse Galvin, Genevieve Mina and Rebecca Himschoot are among the legislators with a solid income tax proposal that would begin to solve our problem. HB 152 would raise more than $300 million, close the Hilcorp loophole and collect from North Slope workers, among other things. Here is Galvin’s sponsor statement.

There are other examples. What’s needed now is leadership from those who have been silent or waiting for others to do something.

I give Anchorage Rep. Zack Fields credit for trying to inject reality into our dividend politics by proposing HB 209, which would tie PFD eligibility to income and cap the amount at $1,000. It’s a good place to start a debate. Don’t like his idea? It should be weighed against real alternatives.

Sen. Shelley Hughes keeps writing that the bill from Fields is a “dillusional” proposal.

I can guarantee that Hughes is wrong.

We suffer from delusions in other quarters.

On December 12 last year, Gov. Mike Dunleavy said he wanted to pay a dividend of $3,892 per person this year and run up a deficit of $1.5 billion, later swollen to $2 billion, to be covered by a rapidly shrinking savings account.

He bragged about his delusional dividend and gave himself credit for his achievement. “In my FY26 proposed budget every Alaskan receives a full PFD,” Dunleavy said.

The one thing we can say for sure is that every Alaskan will never receive what Dunleavy has promised. He excels at the dumbed-down dividend debate.

The screenshot below is from Dunleavy’s social media accounts, although the slice of the captioning provided by the governor’s office accidentally revealed a truth.

Even Dunleavy knows that his dividend claims—like all of those he has promised during his years as governor—are empty, made with the full understanding that the Legislature will save state finances by refusing to go along with his $1.5 billion deficit.

He always plays the part of Gov. Helpless Bystander, unable to propose cutting $1.5 billion in state spending, raising $1.5 billion in state taxes or doing anything meaningful to pay for the dividends he promises, but never delivers.

“I’m sure there some people that were hoping and some special interest groups that were hoping that we would not put forward a full dividend,” he boasted in December about his alleged dividend.

“But that’s not gonna happen. That won’t happen next year either. We’re gonna follow the law. And so we’ll work on people, on a number of different bills. And if people want to bring up bills regarding the dividend, we’ll have a discussion with them. We’ll take a look at it and see if it works for Alaska,” he said.

What Dunleavy is doing doesn’t work for Alaska. His numbers never add up. Until something changes, $1,000 works for Alaska.

The long-term “plan” from Gov. Helpless Bystander would create a deficit of roughly $12 billion over the next decade. That is a delusion we cannot afford.

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