In 2016, the State of Alaska stopped paying you your full Permanent Fund Dividend. It hasn’t paid one since. That one fact tells you more about Alaska’s budget problem than a hundred speeches in Juneau ever could.

Most Alaskans want the same things. We want a full statutory PFD. We want our roads plowed, our schools funded, troopers when we call, ferries that run, and public employees to have the retirement they were promised. We also want to keep Alaska free of an income tax and a statewide sales tax. At the same time, some of us want to stop every new mine, every new road, every timber sale, and every new energy project before the first shovel ever hits the dirt.

The problem is simple. We cannot have all of those things at once. We never could.

I don’t have to predict the future to prove it because we’ve already lived through the first cut.

After Gov. Walker vetoed half of your dividend in 2016, the Legislature decided to use part of it to pay for government, and the courts said they could. Ever since then, taking money from your PFD has become the easiest way for Juneau to balance the books. Nobody ever asked the people if they wanted to change the formula. The state needed money, and your dividend was the easiest place to get it. That should bother every Alaskan.

The one choice we don’t get is no development and no taxes. That isn’t a plan.

Why did the dividend go first? Because every other part of the budget has somebody fighting for it. Roads have contractors. Schools have unions and school boards. Every department has commissioners and employees. State unions have lobbyists. The dividend belongs to all of us, so it belongs to no special interest. It has no lobbyist walking the halls of the Capitol.

The first domino has already fallen. The real question is why anyone believes it stops there.

It doesn’t.

When the dividend is finally gone, the same math comes after everything else. Roads. Schools. Troopers. Ferries. Retirement. Nothing is exempt.

For nearly 50 years, oil has paid for most of our state government. It is why Alaska has no income tax and no statewide sales tax. If oil production declines and we refuse to replace it with new development, the money doesn’t disappear in just one place. It disappears everywhere, starting with whatever has the weakest voice in Juneau.

Some people say the answer is taxes. Maybe an income tax. Maybe more taxes on tourists. I’ll give them credit for one thing. At least they’re honest about the math. If Alaskans decide they would rather pay higher taxes than develop another mine or build a gasline, that’s their choice.

But let’s be honest about what that choice buys.

You cannot tax a shrinking economy into prosperity. Taxes won’t restore your dividend. They won’t magically fix our schools or solve every budget problem. All they do is slow the decline while more people leave Alaska and fewer taxpayers are left to carry the load.

Alaska isn’t poor. We’re one of the richest places on Earth. We just keep refusing to cash our own paycheck.

The one choice we don’t get is no development and no taxes. That isn’t a plan. That’s a countdown to turning Alaska into little more than a federally managed national park.

This is the part that bothers me most. Alaska rarely votes no on a project. Instead, we smother projects with delay. We ask for one more study. One more hearing. One more lawsuit. One more permit. One more community council resolution in opposition. Eventually the financing dries up, investors walk away, and opponents celebrate without ever having to cast a no vote.

Projects in Alaska rarely die. They just never get born.

The Alaska LNG project is facing that same playbook right now, even as it stands closer to construction than ever before. The proposed DNR-AIDEA land transfer near Houston may be next.

To be fair, there are two kinds of people in every project fight. There are Alaskans with honest questions. What happens to my well? What about the salmon? What will this do to traffic? That’s a “yes, but” conversation, and I’ll sit down with those folks every day of the week because good projects usually get better when those questions are answered.

What isn’t honest is pretending we can keep full government services, reject new development, refuse new taxes, and quietly raid the Permanent Fund Dividend to make up the difference.

Then there’s the crowd whose answer is always NO. The reason changes every week, but the answer never does. That’s “no, because…”

A question looks for an answer. A verdict looks for an excuse.

That’s the Resource Trap.

Alaska isn’t poor. We’re one of the richest places on Earth. We just keep refusing to cash our own paycheck.

So, what do we get instead? We get millions of acres locked up, producing nothing. No jobs. No royalties. No revenue. No dividend. No money for schools. Then wildfire season comes, the land burns, and we wonder where the money will come from to pay the firefighters.

That isn’t conservation. It’s decline with a pretty view.

I’m not asking Alaskans to agree with every project. I’m asking them to choose a direction.

If we want development, then we need to get to “yes” on good projects while investors still want to invest here. If we want taxes instead, then someone should say so plainly and tell Alaskans exactly what that bill will look like.

Either position is honest.

What isn’t honest is pretending we can keep full government services, reject new development, refuse new taxes, and quietly raid the Permanent Fund Dividend to make up the difference. That’s not a fiscal plan. That’s managing decline one budget cycle at a time.

The dividend was the first domino. Everything else you count on from your state is standing right behind it.

The difference between an Alaska that grows and an Alaska that declines is the difference between “yes, but” and “no, because.”

I know where I stand.

We should build before the next domino falls. That’s the Alaska way.

The views expressed here are those of the author.

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