Republicans ask what Abe Lincoln would do about the PFD

How would Abraham Lincoln deal with the Permanent Fund Dividend?

The brightest Republican minds in Juneau put that question to the legions of Republican candidates hoping to become governor.

They didn’t ask the governor wannabes to opine on whether George Washington and Jesus would be OK with a $1,000 dividend. Or if the Great Emancipator would have liked the Bad Bunny halftime show.

The Republican forum hosts did ask the candidates to give a so-called Gettysburg Address of no more than 272 words—not about the Civil War—but about why Alaskans should vote for them.

Tregarrick Taylor used AI to write his Gettysburg Address. Bernadette Wilson went on twice as long as instructed. Shelley Hughes began, “Three score and seven years of statehood. Before us now is a great test whether this vast land conceived in freedom can long endure under rising costs, overreach and out-migration.”

A little historical perspective about the beauty and significance of the Gettysburg Address would have prevented this embarrassing exercise. Let’s just say the world will little note, nor long remember that part of what the candidates said there.

The Alaska Beacon had this story on the GOP forum in Juneau.

The Juneau Independent also had good coverage.

The Alaska Beacon recorded the forum and provided a tape, which is how I know about Honest Abe and the PFD.

The question was preceded with a statement that former Gov. Bill Walker’s 2016 dividend veto created a “house divided” in Alaska.

The Republicans need to educate themselves on why the dividend veto and Lincoln’s speech about slavery tearing the nation apart are not analogous. No one bothered to say so.

Here is what 10 GOP candidates for governor said in response to “How do you think Abraham Lincoln would have approached this issue?”

There is a great deal of nonsense in some of these replies, while a few are OK. No one mentioned the reality that the state will not be able to pay big dividends without taxes.

As Lincoln probably didn’t say, you can fool some of the people all of the time.

ADAM CRUM: Lincoln was famous for his empathy, and that actually means you have to listen, but you also have to act decisively. I think that actually doing that unilaterally was something that took everybody by shock and awe when it occurred in 2016 that is something that should have been actually put forward in the public debate in the forum. I think it is something that as we address this now, as we tour around the state, getting Alaskans to understand our fiscal situation is such that no we cannot afford a statutory dividend right now at two and a half billion dollars. That is how much that would cost to get out the door. But we can grow our way to prosperity there by protecting the dividend going forward and developing our resources.

BERNADETTE WILSON: So I will tell you that I believe Abraham Lincoln very much so believed in individual rights and in the freedom and the ability for the individual to know better than government. The reality is, when it comes to the Permanent Fund, you guys, it has nothing to do with the amount of the check. You as an individual, you own the resources to the state. We believe that you as the individual knows better how to spend money, not government. And at the core of that permanent fund fight. If nothing else, you can't give up that very core conservative value that the individual knows better.

BRUCE WALDEN: Well, I'm not sure how Abraham Lincoln would deal with the situation that we're in in 2025 but I do know he was a gadget head. Did you know that? He was a gadget nerd. Anything that new came out, he would play with it before he let the army play with it. I think he liked to play with numbers and new things. We've got more coal in the state of Alaska than Appalachia ever dreamed of. And my folks are Appalachian. I know my voice doesn't betray that. But we have coal, oil, gas, all these other things. I think they need to be lumped in together. It's going to take a little moving and grooving over at the House and Senate, but I think it can be done.

CLICK BISHOP: I couldn't even begin to think what Abraham Lincoln would say, but I do know that he was very pragmatic, and he invented the use of executive power authority, not unlike what our president of the United States currently is using to move this great nation forward. And so my ability, I do have the ability to work well with others. I've got a 12-year track record of proven that, and it takes 21 and 11 to get anything done out there. If you don't think it doesn’t, that's the shape that we're in today.

DAVE BRONSON: Well again, I don't know how he would deal with it. I do know he was a very forceful president. Remember, he's the one president that I know of that suspended Habeas Corpus. That was a difficult decision. I went to Bill Walker and asked him here just a month ago, why he made the decision that he made, and he was facing a $3.2 billion budget deficit because of declining revenue. And he says, I’d make the same decision today. So I know some of us in this room love to beat up on him, but he saw he was in a very tough, tough predicament, and as and as a leader, you’ve got to make the tough decisions, just like Abraham Lincoln did.

EDNA DEVRIES: Well, I think that as we look upon our state and our nation, we know that in many ways, we were very similar to what Abraham Lincoln was doing when he was president. As you know, the nation was very divided. And I believe that what happened in 2016 caused a great division in our state regarding the PFD, and I hope that we can rectify that and be as President Lincoln was uniter in bringing the country together.

JAMES PARKIN IV: I already freed the slaves. We'll spend billions of dollars this year giving it to some of the wealthiest companies and individuals in the world. But we can't afford to give the people of Alaska their due dividend. I think you see what you want to see, and you hear what you want to hear.

MATT HEILALA: Well. Abraham Lincoln was a man of conviction, and he understood very well that you negotiate and compromise when you can, and you fight only if you must. He would not abide a civil war over money and over the situation that would be solved with creativity, discipline, transparency and being present with the legislature. He understood that he was a man of conviction and character.

SHELLEY HUGHES: Well about 20 years ago I read the “Team of Rivals.” And I believe that Abraham Lincoln would have come together with his team and asked the question, why is this happening and work on the problem that started it all, which is that this state is reliant solely on oil. We are not diversified. We have to achieve cheap energy so that we will be diversified, and that is how we will be strong, and that is how we will rebuild the PFD, and that is how we will have a successful future.”

TREGARRICK TAYLOR: Abraham Lincoln was a very thoughtful man. He spent a lot of time thinking things through. And he would have thought, hey, when were we not fighting about the PFD? And he would realize, man, it was when the economy was booming. He would have rolled up his sleeves, put on his characteristic hat, and gone to work to get the economy moving again. He also was not willing to make people sacrifice where he was unwilling to sacrifice. And so he would have again rolled up his sleeve, put his character’s top hat on, and reduced government and made it more efficient before expecting Alaska families to fork out money where we haven't done the job as legislature and as governor.

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