Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Alaska Maybe we really can't afford the PFD...

I think the PFD is a social experiment that we can officially write off as having "failed". Sure we all enjoy getting a little cash to pay off some debts or take a trip to Hawaii, but the net affect is a loss in my opinion. Too many people who have done the math on how to avoid being a productive citizen. Between PFD's, Quest cards, denali kid care, unemployment, and the good will of the community, there are more people than I thought living off the system. Flush it all away, use the earnings to pay for education, infrastructure, or other necessary state gov. Hopefully the sucking sound will pull some of these lowlifes out of the state. Its alot warmer in a place like CA or HI for freeloaders to hang.

Natives have been here for thousands of years

Like the whole united states here, I wish you luck in doing away with the load of feebies. Luckily yours is based on petro, and as such could be just stopped period.

It would alienate a lot of voters, but that's life.

I would hope it would allow you to have many of your leeches migrate south.

Don't want em here in TX, but I understand the feelings.

Heck if I had known about this system years ago the wife and I would have already quit our jobs and come up to live off your sustenance for free. LOL.

Still hope to be up in a number of years to be a PRODUCTIVE part of your great state.

In the words of the Worm from Wasilla, the solution might be ending that, at least for some:




The truth is, if you start kicking the legs out from under the table, you'll undoubtedly discover that the biggest tables don't actually have legs of their own, and the legs under them are actually those of the "lesser" tables.

If we would stop acting like fools who just won the lottery in times of boom, there would be room for everyone when things get lean.

A little over 18-months into a down cycle in oil markets Sen. McGuire proposes to make a permanent change to the 35 year PFD program which, if passed, would forever delink individual Alaskans from a financial interest in the Permanent Fund, turning the earnings over entirely to support for government spending and tying the dividend thereafter to oil revenues.

At the very time the fund is reaching significant size the effect would be that Alaskans would lose the benefit of what they have been investing in for over three decades, the Alaska equivalent of the federal government converting the Social Security Fund to supporting federal spending and linking subsequent payments instead to royalties from federal mineral lands.

The reason? To be able to maintain future spending at levels about 20% higher than they would have been had the state kept spending growth to inflation plus population growth over the last ten years, and which are justified by current sustainable revenue levels. Alaska doesn't need to go down this road.

Between the CBR and earnings reserve Alaska still will have roughly $12 billion in fiscal reserves at the end of this fiscal year, which when coupled with reducing spending to sustainable levels is more than enough to ride out the bottom of the current oil cycle without cutting the PFD or adopting broad based taxes.

This isn't about revenue; this is clearly about spending levels. And there is even a greater problem this creates. Because earnings from the Permanent Fund are variable, they also won't be sufficient to sustain elevated spending levels over the long term. As a result, going down this road ultimately will create a need for broad based and other taxes.

The Alaska advantage in developing our resources will be lost. We are coming up on an inflection point in Alaska's fiscal history. By continuing a government economy built on overspending, choosing to make permanent changes will send us down an increasingly difficult road.

http://www.alaskacommons.com/2016/02/09/sen-lesil-mcguire-debuts-alternative-hybrid-fiscal-plan

We have been up in Alaska for 17+ years and we have always looked at the PFD as a windfall for our 3 kids. We have stuffed every PFD we have ever received into 529 accounts and they have provided a nice nest egg for each of the kids to use for college. I think this is not the norm because none of the guys I work with do this and see the PFD as part of their income.

If we were to stop the PFD today I would miss it but I see it as a gift or really as a form of welfare. Most whom I work with see it as theirs. Not sure how I feel about it but if it goes it goes. Our greedy politicians have been chomping at the Bit for years trying to get it and now they just may have found a way to do it!

Lets just kill the Mega Projects, kill the travel and get rid of the LAO and start living closer to our means??? Na......

As far as calling Alaska natives lowlifes, I'd say that there's plenty of scumbags in watch4bears neighborhood too, mostly white, and actually, the people who live on the road system where jobs are actually available meet the definition of scumbag much more than people who live in the village where they were born and there just aren't any jobs.

People who use the system to avoid working are lowlifes, but every person is an individual, and your race does not define you.

Remember that Bear is actually a fat Japanese dude with a really sick Tumbler account. I don't really think he lives in the valley guys.

Then I should be eligible for a government check; you know, as an undefined individual

Give the state gov the PFD earnings and they will piss it away just like the initial swell of revenue from '77? when TAPS started flowing until the "first crash" in '85.

Bastids could not spend that money fast enough nor hold back on things too stupid. Why expect anything different now?

If you're a resident, you ARE eligible for a government check.

You are right, but one process that only costs me a PFD check each year would be better for the state and the people as it would make it obvious when they overspend.

Not sure it would be obvious *enough* to the majority.

it's not so much the PFD check but the waste it would encourage.

Unless you're blind, you'll note that the Mat Valley, and many other road accessible, mostly white communities, are chock full of freeloaders/welfare queens.

Jeff

That explains how we got Walker; and why we needs more welfare monies. Viscous circle ain't it?


Reckon raiding the PFD will stop welfare for good?

Nope, but it beats the schit out of an income tax that only affects those who work!

I am glad we finally danced all the way around cutting the size of government. I was getting tired feet

And that's a big part of the reason we get into the trouble we're in now. When things start booming, stuff...needs...which we haven't been able to afford for years, suddenly become, "Oh, here, we know you've waited for this new school for years, and we know $15 million will make a nice one. But we have gobs of money now, so here's $30 million instead. Make sure you build a big one with plenty of surface area since you live where the wind blows strong and regular. That way you can help keep the demand for Alaskan oil high."

And so we strap ourselves with stuff that we can't afford when times get tough.

Meanwhile the roads turn to sshit.

A projection when the Barrow high school was being built said the first several decades worth of students could each be given a check for a cool million dollars instead of building it... and saved money...