The Weekly Top 3
The Weekly Top 3
The Weekly Top 3 (11.3.2025)
Welcome to The Weekly Top 3 — our look at the top 3 things on our mind here at Alaskans for Sustainable Budgets — for the week of November 3, 2025.
This week, our top 3 issues are these: 1) we discuss a stunner: how Alaska takes more as a share of income from its middle & lower-income families than California takes under its income tax from its billionaires (2:14); 2) we explain why the Task Force on Education Funding needs to address how they actually intend to FUND the increased spending they want (19:49); and 3) we examine the irony of Alaska’s SNAP funding “crisis,” how many of the same legislators who are now outraged about the potential loss of funds themselves voted to take even more from the very same recipients in the last budget (38:03).
The Weekly Top 3 is a regular weekly segment on The Michael Dukes Show. The Show broadcasts on Facebook and YouTubeLive as well as via streaming audio from the Show’s website weekdays from 6–8am. We join Michael weekly in the first hour of Tuesday’s show, from 6:25–7am, for a discussion between the two of us about our three issues.
Hi, this is Brad Keithley, Managing Director of Alaskans for Sustainable Budgets. Welcome to the Weekly Top Three, the Top Three Things on Our Mind here at Alaskans for Sustainable Budgets for the week of November 3rd, 2025. The Weekly Top Three is a regular segment on the Michael Duke Show. The show broadcasts on both Facebook Live and YouTube Live, as well as via streaming audio from the show's website weekdays from 6 to 8 a.m. I join Michael weekly in the first hour of Tuesday show from 6.10 to 7 a.m. for a discussion between the two of us about our three issues. We post the podcast of our discussion following the show on the Alaskans for Sustainable Budgets Facebook, YouTube, SoundCloud, Spotify, and Substack pages, also on the Alaskans for Sustainable Budgets website, as well as the project's page on national blog site, medium.com. You can find past episodes of the weekly top three also at the same locations. Keep in mind that in addition to these podcasts during the week, you can also follow and participate in the discussion with us of these and other issues affecting Alaska's fiscal and economic condition by following us on the Alaskans for Sustainable Budgets Facebook page and through our posts on X, formerly Twitter. This week, our top three issues are these. First, we discuss a stunner, how Alaska takes more as a share of income from its middle and lower income Alaska families than California takes under its income tax from its billionaires. Second, we explain why the task force on education funding needs to address how they actually intend to fund the increased spending they want. And third, we examined the irony of Alaska's SNAP funding fiscal crisis, how many of the same legislators who are now outraged about the potential loss of funds themselves voted to take even more from the same recipients in the last budget. And now let's join Michael.
SPEAKER_01:Before we get into the deep end, let's let's let's talk about what I mentioned yesterday because people almost lost their mind when I made, I quoted you from the message you sent me this weekend when you were like, holy cow, spending my free hours going through all these tax information because he's fun at parties, and then discovered that Alaska's taxes um actually taxes the the middle and lower income more than California taxes their gazillionaires. Walk me through this, Brad.
SPEAKER_00:What's going on? Well, Michael, as you say, fun at parties. And just to prove that this weekend, I started going through some tax data, mostly because I wanted to put uh an Alaska flat tax, what an Alaska flat tax would look like in context with other states that have flat taxes. There are now 14 states, two more on the way that have flat taxes. Uh it is the tax foundation has talked about it as a as a as a uh a revolution, uh tax, a flat tax revolution. And Alaska would fit if we if Alaska adopted a flat tax to cover its deficits as opposed to using PFD cuts, Alaska would fit right in. As I was doing the chart, uh I I threw in the top 10, the marginal rates from the top 10 uh states uh that have progressive income taxes, just for you know some perspective. And then I at separately I've been working on some uh calculations with respect to what the PFD cuts does by income bracket in the state. And all of a sudden it dawned on me uh uh what the what the result was. So if you've got the chart in front of you, uh it'll take it's uh it's gonna take a sec.
SPEAKER_01:I apologize. It'll take a sec, but it'll pop up a second here.
SPEAKER_00:So the so what I did was I charted the impact of using PFD cuts by income bracket on on Alaskans by the low, middle, low quartiles, low, low, middle, upper middle, and high uh by income bracket, and compared the impact of those to, there we go, and compared the impact of those to the marginal tax rates, the highest marginal tax rates in the nation, the top, the top 10 marginal state income tax rates. And what this chart shows, the the flat tax is on the right, and I'll get to that at some point, but the but on the left before the break, what this shows is the impact of PFD cuts uh on by income bracket uh for three categories of income brackets in the red on for Alaska. Uh the first is the lowest 25%, the impact of PFD cuts as a share of income, what PFD cuts take as a share of income for the lowest 25%. The second over uh is the impact on the low 50%. So I combined the low 25% and the lower middle 25%. And then just because I wanted to see what the result was, I did the I did the lowest 75%, uh, the impact of PFD cuts on the lowest 75%. And that's the third red bar uh from the left. And that shows the impact, the average impact of PFD cuts on low, lower, middle, and upper middle income families as a percent, as a share of income, as a percent of total income using uh the latest IRS data for income. And then the blue uh the blue bars next to that are the are the marginal rates, the highest rates, the rates that apply that apply to the billionaires, the millionaires and the billionaires, uh in each of the states that have in the top 10 states that have progressive rates, the the the top uh marginal rates uh in the state rates uh in the nation. And as you can see, California is there, 13.3%, highest marginal rate in the nation. Uh Hawaii, which I hadn't really focused on before, has the next highest marginal rate, uh, 11%. New York has the next highest marginal rate, which we a lot of people talk about at 10.9%, and then it goes on down from there uh in the remaining 10. That is the marginal rate, the highest rate, the rate they charge their billionaires in each of those states. And as you can see, as a share of income, as a percent of income, those rates are dwarfs, dwarfed by the the impact of PFD cuts on the lowest uh 25%, on the lowest 50%, and even on the lowest um uh uh 75%, the low, low middle, lower middle, and and upper middle uh income families. To put this another way, to put it in a way that I've been trying to phrase this in a way that will show the impact. Alaska is the California of regressive tax rates. It is not only the California of regressive tax rates, when you look at the lowest 25%, you could add California's marginal tax rate plus New York's marginal tax rate plus Hawaii's marginal tax rate, and it would still be less than the than the average marginal tax rate on the low 25%. You could add, you could add um uh California and New York and you get pretty close to still being higher with the average marginal tax rate on Alaska's lowest 50%. So when you think about when you think about, oh my gosh, you think about what people say about California and New York, oh my gosh, those marginal tax rates, they're driving people out of the state. They're driving people from California to Texas or from New York to Florida. They're that most marginal tax rates are horrible. They're having such a horrible effect uh on uh on outmigration. Well, look at what Alaska's tax rates are doing to our to our lowest 25%, our lowest uh 50%, and our lowest 75%. If you want an explanation, if you want to understand why Alaska has outmigration uh with in in its working class, working family, uh working age uh families, if you want to understand what's going on, just look at those marginal tax rates. Just like California, just like we say, California and New York and Hawaii has other things going on, but California and New York are driving their high income families out of the state. Look at what those marginal tax rates are doing to California's or looking to Alaska's middle income uh families.
SPEAKER_01:Can you remind us, uh Brad, what these are uh quartiles, not quintiles. So can you remind us what what is the, you know, give us the ballpark of what is the low, middle, lower, middle, middle, what what is the range there? We're talking about 25, 50, 75.
SPEAKER_00:It's really interesting, Michael. I've got I've got the sheet and it'll be in the in the Friday column, uh, the the precise numbers. But even the the average income in the upper, in the in the bottom 75%, the average income among lower, lowest, lower middle, and upper middle, the average income is less than$50,000. Alaska, Alaska has a huge skew between the between the average income for middle income families, low and middle income families, and the upper 25%. It is a huge skew. I mean, there's this huge gap that goes on between the two. If you average in, excuse me, if you average in the top 25%, that red bar would drop down to where you see, mostly where you see the first red bar uh on the right-hand side, 4.9%. That's because the averaging impact of the income from the from the top 20% really brings uh the average, the average down. Uh but so it I I if uh my memory is about 16,000, 17,500 maybe for the low 25%, maybe in the 25s, uh somewhere, 26, 27, between 25 and 30 for the for the lower 50 percent, the average income for the lower 50 percent. But I'm pretty confident that I remember the number for uh for the the bottom 25 percent or bottom 75 percent, the uh the the lower the lower and the combined lower and and and middle income classes is less than$50,000.
SPEAKER_01:Now, this is uh I mean this is an interesting comparison because I mean it it's not necessarily proving anything except for our tax rate, you know, this hidden tax rate through the PFD cut is highly skewed. Uh because again, we're comparing, you know, billionaires to lower and middle income and you know, or millionaires are the wealthy, but it's indicative of what's going on in the state as far as that take uh and how it's affecting the uh you know the lowest 75% of income earners in the state. So that is an interesting uh take. No, there's not a whole lot of billionaires living in Alaska, but when you look at it and you realize that California is not even treating their marginals lowest 75% in the same way, you realize that this is a, I mean, this is a significant, this is a significant change for Alaska.
SPEAKER_00:If I were to do the marginal tax rate on our millionaires, let's just pick millionaires, let's not, let's not pick on billionaires. If I were to you do the marginal tax rate for our millionaires in Alaska uh and put it in the context of those blues bars, it would be 0.2%, 0.2% compared to Alaska's 13.3%. So what you I mean, it just it just shows that it demonstrates the regressivity of the of the Alaska tax system of using PFD cuts to raise uh to raise revenues. The the Alaska's millionaires or even$100,000 heirs uh are paying minuscule uh tax rates, average tax rates, compared marginal tax rates compared to those in the top 10 states, or indeed any state that has a progressive, has a progressive income tax. I mean, I could put all of them out there, and Alaska would still be the lowest. But but what what you know, so while we're we're taxing our hundred thousandaires and our millionaires at a very low rate, we're taxing our middle and uh middle and lower income Alaska families at an increasingly upper rate, top rate. Right. So you can see you can see how big that hit is by comparing it to the marginal rates that are in the in the other states.
SPEAKER_01:And no, we're not talking about populations. This is a per capita per, this is about income, not about uh populations. Uh quickly here, two minutes uh uh the the flat tax is that what's on the right here? This is the right-hand side of the of the equation.
SPEAKER_00:Right. So this does the flat tax, the flat tax by state. There are 14 states that have adopted it. There are two more that are in process of adopting it, a healthy, healthy chunk. And it looks at the flat tax by what the flat tax rate is. Um, and I'd have to blow this up to figure it out. I don't have oh, there we go. Idaho is the top at 5.7%. Idaho and Utah, uh, both states that are in the Western region and states that are booming, uh booming state economies, have higher uh flat tax rates than Alaska would if we covered our deficits through flat taxes as opposed to uh as opposed to through uh PFD cuts. The the other thing I looked at, some of these flat tax rates are misleading because the state has both a flat tax and a sales tax. And so the flat tax is lower than than it would be if you were trying to recover all of their deficit through uh through through just the flat tax. So I looked at Alaska and said, okay, so what if we had a sales tax and a flat tax and we recovered half our revenue, half the deficit through the sales tax, and half the revenue through the flat tax. What would Alaska's flat tax be? And that that is comparable to many of the states who in this chart who also have sales taxes. And Alaska's flat tax rate at 2.4%, if we set it up that way, would be the would be the lowest. Hang on a second.
SPEAKER_01:Incoming voice calls from Lorena percent.
SPEAKER_00:Would be the would be the lowest uh uh uh flat tax rate in the nation, uh if we if we did it the same way some other states do. So a flat tax, I mean, people say a flat, well, we can't even afford a flat tax. Well, you know, look at our regional competitors, Idaho and Utah, they have higher flat taxes. And our flat tax is about the same as several several other states. And if we if we paired it with a sales tax that raised part of the revenue through a sales tax, our flat tax rate would be the lowest in the nation. So it's those those who go run around claiming, oh my God, we don't have enough of a of a tax base, we couldn't nearly raise enough uh through uh through uh income taxes or through other forms of revenue measures as opposed to PFD cuts. Yeah, we can. I mean, and and and we fit right in in the nation in terms of in terms of where uh we end up with a flat tax rate.
SPEAKER_01:Question Does the flat tax rate take into consideration income that's not taxed, such as the first$12,000 not being taxed? Um I don't know if it does or not, Brad.
SPEAKER_00:No, uh a lot of states don't. A lot of states? Yeah, go ahead. No, a lot of states don't have deductibles like that. So I didn't include a deductible like that. What David's talking about is the federal income tax. Uh not all states are are based on the same basis as the uh as the federal income tax. They have different bases. So no, that takes into account all income. The Alaska flat tax takes into account all income. And then the 2.4% rate on the right could be the result not of using not of uh pairing it with the sales tax, but of pairing it with raising uh revenues through reforming uh oil taxes. It could be it could be paired with a lot of things uh that uh that we improve POMB uh uh uh performance, PFD performance, or PFC permanent fund corporation performance. It could be paired with a lot of things, and we could we could bring that rate down. So it's just representative of what the rates would be under certain conditions.
SPEAKER_01:And Jim asks, what tax system in Alaska? And you're talking about using PFD cuts is a as a form of effective, it's a tax, effectively, it's a tax. And so that's what you're talking about here with this, is that it's a PFD cut.
SPEAKER_00:Um I there was an article. I mean, we're we're we should be past that point of of arguing about whether PFDs are taxes. There was even an article in Must Read, uh, a column in Must Read that that that that talked about the PFD cuts as taxes. So yeah, I mean that's what they are. That's what that's what they've been throughout.
SPEAKER_01:Wasn't it Matt Berman from ICER that basically said that you know, he said that this is effectively a tax? You know, call it whatever you want, but it has the same effect as a tax. It's effectively a tax.
SPEAKER_00:So yeah, it's like it's like tariffs. I mean, at the national level, tariffs are called tariffs instead of taxes, but they're taxes. I mean, they are taxes on on imports. Um, and we just call them tariffs because they're a specialized kind of tax. TFD cuts are also a specialized kind of tax. They're still a tax, they're in the in the big umbrella of taxes. They divert revenue from private private income over to the government, withhold and divert revenue over to the government. That's what a tax is. Uh and that and that's what they are. So, yeah, that's the that's the system we're talking about.
SPEAKER_01:It's interesting. Um, this was again kind of a 10,000-foot view. Um, David uh uh asked early on, he said, have you considered the benefits that the lowest 25% receive, like Snap and Free Cell phones, Medicaid, et cetera. But I mean, this is the 10,000-foot view. It wasn't necessarily to dive down into the details, right?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, no, and and I'm taxing them. I mean, to go back to his other question about whether I included a 12,000 deduction, I didn't. I taxed them, tax them, taxed the lower 25%. This the PFD cuts, I mean, let's let's focus on this for a minute. PFD cuts tax the lowest 25%. They tax them at a at a at a huge marginal rate. So, so the tax system we use, the flat tax system we used, also taxes the lowest 20%, but it's a better tax for them. It's a lower tax for them. They save money, they they have more income in their pockets by substituting a flat tax for PFD cuts.
SPEAKER_01:Uh so well, look, I'm not a college graduate, but I mean, even I understand that the the big red line, the 37%, that 4.9% is still much lower than 37%. Even I understand that, right? I mean, so yeah, if you were talking about a flat tax versus uh, you know, this effect of this PFD tax on the marginal rate, yeah, it's pretty pretty obvious that uh they would be better off with a flat tax at that point as well. It would be the upper incomes that would be screaming at that point.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Because the upper but but the thing about a flat tax that uh that I think is is is the killer argument for it is no one pays any more than anybody else. Yes. The upper income proportionally. The Alaska is a share of income. The Alaska upper incomes would pay a bit more in terms of the share of their income using a flat tax as opposed to PFD cuts, but they wouldn't pay any more than anybody else as a share of income. Everybody would have the same skin in the game uh in terms of government costs. And as we've talked about before, I think that would motivate the upper incomes who now have no incentive, no financial incentive to push back on spending. It would motivate the upper incomes to start pushing back on spending.
SPEAKER_01:Well, we we knew that they were gonna do it. We knew as soon as we saw the makeup of the education task force. We it was confirmed when we saw the first tranche of guest speakers that they were going to have at the education task force. And lo and behold, look at what they're talking about already. They're already talking about how they need to increase the funding. Brad, this is all about the education uh task force and how how they're looking for more. The funding is the answer. Funding is funding is the answer. What we just need is we just need more money. Oh, we could kill all these other programs too. By the way, the Alaska Reeds thing, which is actually showing progress. We should, you know, but the money, we need more money. We knew it was coming, and here it is.
SPEAKER_00:Well, yeah, we had we had a broad range of testifiers at last week's uh uh second meeting of the education task force, the bicameral education task force. Um, and it was uh it was interesting. It was from STEM to stern, basically, people talking about needing needing more money. Very, very few ideas on how to uh how to raise the additional money that's needed. AML, um uh I want to dive deeper into this exactly what they're proposing, but AMLA the Ask Alaska Municipal League. So just so people know what AML is. Right. Uh the Alaska Municipal League, thank you, had uh had one proposal uh that uh was interesting because it said, let's take off the cap on local contribution. Let's allow local communities to contribute more uh toward education. If the local communities want more spending in their in their school system, let's allow them to contribute more. Um and that would have some ramifications at the state level because it would undo the the reason we have limitations on local spending is to fit within federal guidelines uh for a funding a funding source that brings about$160,$150 million a year, if I recall correctly, from the federal government to the to the state government. If we took off the spending cap and allowed local governments to spend more if they wanted to on their school districts, it would increase the disparity between the upper, the top spending districts and the lower spending districts, the consequence of which we would no longer qualify for that federal funding. Um and so it would have the impact of taking that revenue source uh out of the system at the state level, although that revenue would still go to the to the local districts that qualify for it. So it wouldn't take it out of the state, it would just take it out of the state level. Um and but AML was was saying, let's undo that cap. And for those districts who want to spend more, let them spend more. And for those districts who don't want to spend more, uh that's okay as well. That's really the only, that was really the only comment that was made during the entire presentation about funding sources. The rest of it was all about spend more, spend more, spend more, spend more, spend more. And and I think Representative Ruffridge uh did a service uh in uh during the hearing when he said this, and I'll quote from the the uh Anchorage Daily News uh uh uh comment on what Ruffridge said. Both Ruffridge and Senator Mike Cronk, a top toke Republican also serving on the committee, have said that education task force discussion should be shaped by the state's fiscal situation. This is what Ruffridge said. I think we all actually have a necessity to answer the question: what would be the way that you personally, the those testifying in favor of increased spending, what would be the way that you personally or people that you talk to, people in your circles, would choose to fund these additional elements? That is, who pays? How are we going to pay for the additional spending these people are talking about? Just saying, as many did, as many testifiers did, the legislature will figure that out. No, we won't, Ruffridge said. We've had that in front of us for a long time. This is this is exactly the same, the flip side of all of the testimony that's gone on over the last decade uh about spending cuts. Every time that that somebody would get up in front of the legislature and say, Oh, the solution to all of this problem is spending cuts. Just cut spending. When they were asked what spending they would cut, the response has been, oh, the legislature will figure that out. You just need to cut spending. It's not our problem where you cut spending, you need to figure that out. And the legislature never has. They've just kept spending. And now we've got we've got the flip side of that. And fortunately, Representative Ruffridge, at least thus far, is is is bringing it out. We've got the flip side of that by people in the education committee saying, we need to spend more, we need to spend more, we need to spend more. And and no one saying where the heck the additional dollars are supposed to come from or how the legislature is supposed to raise the additional dollars. And representative rufferage is sort of pushing back in the same way that that those did during the spending cut years by saying, you know, where would you make the, where where would you would you raise the revenue? These this hearing is sort of in fantasy land, if they don't, if if if they the testifiers and and the the representatives, the legislators on the panel, if they don't confront the the where's the funding going to come from for this additional spending, if they don't address that additional issue. Because everybody can say, oh, we need to spend more in this area, we need to spend more in this area, we need to spend more in this area, we need to spend more in this area. If they don't have the responsibility of coming forward with where that revenue is supposed to come from, who we're going to affect, who's going to be hit uh by uh by that uh by that increased uh spending, who's gonna fund the increased spending, if they don't have to confront that, there's no there's no ceiling, there's no pushback, there's no there's no counterbalance to to we need to spend more, we need to spend more. If you force, if you force testifiers to come in and say, we need to spend more on X, and and I'm and and and I think we should pay for it by progressive income tax, or we should pay for it by deeper PFD cuts, or we should pay for it by a flat tax, then you're gonna get, you're gonna have some constraints on the conversation because people are gonna say, oh, I don't want to, I don't want to pay more for that. It's nice, it's nice in in the absence of having to come up with the with the with the funding source. It's nice in in the absence of that to say, oh, we need to have retirement, uh defined benefit retirement, we need to have you know more in the classrooms, we need to have higher teacher salaries, we need to cut down on classroom size so we mean need more teachers overall. It's all nice to say that if you don't have to confront the constraint of where the heck the money's gonna come from. But if you have to confront that constraint, if you have to say, as those who advocated spending cuts did in the in the last decade, if you have to say where is it gonna come from, where are their spending cuts going to come from, or where's the additional revenue is gonna come from, if you have to confront that, then you then you have a balance at least between between you have a constraint on on the increased spending that you're talking about, and people start pushing back uh on that increased spending. So I think he was alone in in pushing back. Refferage was alone in that pushback out of the out of the what are there, eight panel members or so. He was alone in that pushback, but at least he was making the pushback uh on uh on that issue. And that's an issue I think that I hope he keeps articulating, Senator Cronk articulates along with him. Uh the only two Republicans on the on the uh committee um on the task force, I hope they keep pushing back on that. Uh and I and I hope it's it's a it's an issue that starts resonating uh around the state uh as people start uh talking about uh what the recommendations are.
SPEAKER_01:But again, Brad, this was not surprising. Again, looking at the makeup and understanding that this was uh this is 100%, as Kevin said, 100% kabuki theater, that they knew that they basically had an outcome that they already wanted, and they're looking for political cover um for that uh for that kabuki theater uh as they go through. And that's where we're at right now. That the the the only answer is more money. And uh and but again, there is no more money. How do how do we do that? We had a hard, I mean, they had to rob an account to pay for this this snap thing, which we're gonna talk about in the next segment. They had to rob money out of another account because they just don't have, you know, they didn't have$10 million laying around out of a state that's got a six billion dollar budget. They didn't have$10 million just laying around to try and offset this emergency here. And so uh, you know, where are they gonna come up with, you know, what another three, four hundred million dollars for forever uh per year forever to try if they increase that's just assuming they increase the VSA by another thousand to try and reach that eighteen hundred uh dollar mark that they were looking at. This is this is crazy.
SPEAKER_00:Uh um, you know, that this is the answer. I I want I want people, I mean, so the assumption is they'll come up, they'll they'll do it through PFD cuts, right? I mean, there's still 650 plus or uh plus or minus million out there in PFD. So the assumption is they'll they'll do it through. I want people to have to confront that. I want testifiers to have to say that we're gonna, we're we will pay for it through additional PFD cuts. We will pay for it through additional, taking additional money out of the pockets of middle and lower income Alaska families. Notwithstanding the fact everybody on the task force is in the top 20%, notwithstanding a lot of those pushing for increased spending are in the top 20%. We will pay for it by taking money out of the pockets of uh increased amounts of money out of the pockets of middle and lower income Alaska families. I want them at least to have to say that. Uh right. I I do give credit to AML, and again, I need to, the Alaska Municipal League, I need to dig into this deeper about exactly what they were saying. But I do give credit to them for raising the possibility that the local government uh would have to actually would would would pony up additional money if they want, if they want additional uh uh spending uh in. Their schools. As I said in a previous column, and we talked about previous landmine column, and as we talked about in a previous segment on the show, I think we have a huge disconnect in Alaska. We have the nation's lowest local contribution to the school school systems. Whereas in the rest of the nation, it's like 40% local, 40% state, 20% national, federal. In Alaska, it's like 80% state and a minor share coming from the local. And as a consequence, you have the local school districts who are making the decisions about teacher contracts and making the decisions about striving for class size and all that sort of stuff. They're not paying for it. When you get to the who pays question of saying, okay, you want to you want more spending in the school district? You pay for it locally. I think there's merit. I think there's merit in that.
SPEAKER_01:And I want to dissect that a little bit during the break here because, again, this is part of a the reason we do that, and the reason that they limit it is because there's federal funding attached to it, uh, and the federal funding has conditions. Uh, we could just stop taking the funding, in which case we could do whatever we wanted. But the the thing is it's a significant amount of money. So we're gonna we'll we'll talk about that here in the break. But we've got number number three coming up, which is uh which is a doozy. Uh, we're gonna talk a little bit about the snap benefits and more. Uh, but again, nothing surprising. Final thoughts here on the uh on the education task force and their and their and and their points, uh Brad.
SPEAKER_00:Uh well, nothing surprising in terms of pushing for increased spending. Uh a little bit of a of a pleasant surprise out of what AML had to say and uh and a pleasant surprise out of what Representative Rupert Rufferich had to say in terms of pushing back on those calls for increased spending without talking about where the money's supposed to come from. But but generally speaking, no surprises. Right. Who pays, right?
SPEAKER_01:That's the biggest question amongst this whole thing is who pays. And uh only a handful of people in the whole legislature seem to be asking that consistently. So we were again, this was this was my question earlier or you know, earlier on the last year when we were starting to talk about this and this cut this concept of you know increasing local contributions came up because some people are paying up to the up to the cap already. And it's an artificial cap that's been brought on by this uh federal money, which is supposed to fix inequity, by basically saying people who live in their communities can't spend more on their schools if it outpaces smaller, less prosperous communities, I guess I should say, uh, in their in their thing. And there's that equity money that comes out of that. Uh, but you're saying that that wouldn't necessarily matter because the money would then go directly to those communities versus going through the state's hands? I I didn't I didn't hear that part of it.
SPEAKER_00:So yeah, so so so the money is coming uh on behalf of rural districts that have substantial federal presence, substantial federal ownership uh of lands in their districts or other substantial federal presence uh perhaps. Um and so it's it's coming as a result of the of the federal money uh in lieu of taxes, in lieu of property taxes that might otherwise be paid on the federal lands, the federal government is contributing money uh to uh on behalf of those districts. It it's it's a little artificial because the money comes to the state if the state abides by the terms and conditions of that money, which is that there not be a greater disparity than X between the amount of funding going to the to the those districts that are not funding uh as much as other districts are, if the disparity is is is X. Um and so the state has fought hard to keep that source, that source of money coming to it. 150, 160 million dollars is my recollection of it. State's fought hard fought hard because it reduces what this otherwise has to come, otherwise is coming out of the state coffers for the BSA. Um if the state breached the disparity, if the state no longer enforced those limits uh that are required by the federal funding attached to the federal funding, if the state breached those limits and no longer had limits on the disparity, the funds would still come. They would just go to those districts instead of being spread statewide, as happens now through state funding, they just come directly to those districts as they earn it, as those districts are entitled to it, um uh uh calculated on the basis of you know what what federal lands, the sheriff's federal lands in their districts are. So it would come into the state, it would just be targeted to those districts. And and the concern by the state is the reason this gets to be a state issue is the concern by the state is oh, we'd have to come up with the difference then to to fund the full BSA. I mean, basically what the state says is here's the BSA, here's what the federal government is is is paying. And so we only have to take out of state funds. This, if you remove the federal funds, if the federal funds go to those districts, then then the state would have to pay the full BSA. You know, one response is well, you could lower the BSA um in that event down to what you're otherwise paying, you know, with the with the state funds. Um but but that's that's the that's that's what's going on. And I think that works, you know, frankly, I'm uh I'm in favor of that, in favor of doing away with the disparity test and increasing the burden because it would increase the burden on the local school districts to pay to pay their own way. I mean, if they want if they want great schools, if they want low uh uh uh number of students per class, if they want to pay teachers, you know, you know, the top dollar in the nation, then have at it. But fund it from your sources. I mean, do that balance because you're the one deciding what to pay the teachers, right? Do that balance inside your own sources.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, if you want to keep these schools open, right? These schools that are at 50% capacity, and that's what we're seeing, you know, all the picketing and the protesting and the signs and everything, keep our school open. Well, great. Well, now you're gonna have to pay through for it through your property taxes or whatever else if you want to keep doing that. And there's an actual cost. It's not just go to Uncle Sugar and ask them for more money. It's now, oh, we've got to pay for it. And that may change the equation.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. I mean, because one of the greatest lobbyists, one of the most powerful sets of lobbyists uh that comes down to Juno for increased school fundings is face is the local school boards, right? I mean, we would we we need more for Johnny, for Johnny's in our district, for Johnny's in your district. We need more, more for them, and we can't do it. So, you know, the state's the one that funds it. So you need to appropriate more uh for us. If if we shifted the burden, shifted an increasing share, not the total burden, but shifted an increasing share, a material share of the burden to the local districts to pay for that, then oh my gosh, you know, if if we increase, if we pay teachers more, we're gonna have to pay for it. We're gonna have to, you know, convince our constituents that are electing us to the school board, we're gonna have to convince them that we did the right thing by by paying our teachers more. And that and the the the constraints on spending aren't any longer as much at the state level, uh, where we've found there's no constraints. The constraints aren't as much as the state level as they start showing up in the local level. So I think I think AML's proposal, they may not intend it this way, but I think AML's AML's proposal of doing away with the the contribu the the the state having the contribution and aid, uh the federal federal contribution and aid, I think the the AML proposal to do away with the state having it has merit.
SPEAKER_01:Okay. Continuing on, Brad Kiefley is our guest, the weekly top three. We're we're already at number three, how how we get here so quickly. Uh number three for Brad is the irony of Alaska's SNAP funding. Crisis. Boy, irony. Tell me it ain't so, Brad. Tell me there's no irony when we're dealing with that's ironic that there's never any irony with the Alaska legislature.
SPEAKER_00:You know, over the last week, as the SNAP crisis has developed, and the SNAP crisis for supplemental nutrition, since we're spelling out acronyms, supplemental nutritional assistance program. See, I actually know what it is. Since we're uh since uh food stamp oh, there you go, cuts of the chase. Since since since we're talking about as we as the SNAP crisis has been developing over the past week, and the crisis is that the federal government, since it shut down the claim by the Trump administration, has been they weren't going to fund the SNAP programs after the first of November, that they'd run out of funds. And and as a consequence, everybody was was running around like chickens with their head cuts off, uh concern about what would happen if the if the if the SNAP benefits were were cut off. Over the course of the last week, I've just been chuckling as I've seen uh various uh legislators, you know, just up in arms about the SNAP crisis and and and about uh about you know, oh my god, what are we gonna do? And and how do we how do we ever resolve this problem? I've been chuckling because of this. It's the same, the same, it's the same legislators who are running around being concerned about it as who voted for PFD cuts. Voted in the budget for PFD cuts. Oh yeah. And and so, you know, since I'm not fun at parties because I spend all my time, you know, fiddling with the numbers, um, I went I went and started doing some numbers. So we have, according to the according to the calculations these legislators are using, we have 66,000 people in Alaska, uh, individuals in Alaska who um are suddenly without uh without any form of support and relief because the federal government is cutting stamp. Right. So I took that times the amount of the PFD cut uh this this year, what they would have received in October had we complied with the statutory PFD, those same 66,000 or most, you know, there may be a few who who don't qualify for PFDs, but those same 66,000 who uh who uh are were concerned about the loss of SNAP benefits, uh, and did that uh at times the PFD cut, which was 2600, 2675 uh plus or minus$2,675 per PFD. If we had paid out the statutory PFD to those 66,000 people, that would have been 175 million dollars. 175 million dollars that would have hit their banking accounts or their pockets or however the heck they receive it, uh it would have it would have been 175 million dollars that that hit that 66,000, uh 66,000 people. The whole SNAP crisis is about$27 million per month. Right, right. And and it's not gonna be it's not gonna be for a full year because eventually the federal government will open. Eventually, SNAP will get funded at the federal level. Um, so it's it's 27 million,$27 million a month for however many months this this crisis drags on. That's the shortfall in what everybody's concerned about, the SNAP beneficiaries not receiving. They're not receiving$27 million. If we had paid out the PFD to those same 66,000 people, 66,000 people in October, they would have 175 million dollars in their pocket. More than enough, more than enough to offset uh the loss of SNAP benefits. What's going on here is is is controlled. I mean, so the legislature decided, those those who are now running around concerned about SNAP benefits, the legislature decided in its infinite wisdom that it wouldn't put$175 million in those people's pockets. The legislature would hold on to that$170 million,$175 million, and they would decide what programs, what benefits, what, what, what, what, what, what places uh that money would be spent. Wouldn't put it in the hands of the people. We'd the legislature would decide that$175 million. Counting on SNAP benefits, I suppose, to help help you know deal with the fact they've taken$175 million out of their out of those people's pockets, counting on SNAP benefits to sort of fill in the uh uh the the gap that would be created in um in their food security. What happened when SNAP benefits got cut is all of a sudden this this this whole charade that the legislature goes through of taking money out of people's pockets and saying we're doing it for your own good uh got exposed because rather than rather than you know the SNAP benefits showing up, which the legislature let those legislators rely on when they take$175 million out of their pockets, uh rather than rather than the SNAP benefits showing up, all of a sudden they didn't show up. And so all of a sudden the$175 million they took out of their pockets makes a difference. People are suddenly going to go, people are now going to go hungry because the legislature, not as much the SNAP benefits, but because the legislature took$175 million out of those same people's pockets um uh in in October. That's that's what's really going on. The legislature took that$175 million, relying on the federal government to contribute$27 million a month. The legislature took$175 million out of their pockets, um, and and all of a sudden the whole thing got blown up. The whole Jerry rigged house of cards got blown up when the federal government said, Oh, we're not gonna contribute that$27 million. So instead of the legislature saying, oops, we shouldn't have done that, we should, we should go back and and make sure they get that, that those people get the money that is owed them under the statute, under the PFD statute, instead of instead of doing that, the legislature all of a sudden said, Oh, wait, we got to come up with$27 more million dollars from the state from the state government to fill to fill in that hole. It's just, I mean, the irony of what's going on here, or the hypocrisy, or whatever the heck word anybody wants to apply to this, the what's going on here is just is just stupefying. I mean, we got a legislature who's actively taking money specified by statute to be distributed to these people,$175 million to go to these people, actively taking money out of their pockets, diverting it elsewhere. Right. And then and then all of a sudden going crazy when when the federal government doesn't come up with$27 million uh on a on a monthly basis for its share of food stamps? Oh my gosh, man, it's a crisis. Huge what about the$175 million? If it's if$27 million, if taking$27 million out of their pockets is a crisis, what about the$175 million you, the legislature, you legislators who are complaining about this, all of a sudden concerned about SNAP? What about the$175 million you took out of their pockets? Isn't that an even bigger crisis?
SPEAKER_01:Right. Well, and I I went at this from the other direction. Uh, you went at it from the top down, I went at from the bottom up, and I said, you know, 66,000 people, 27 million dollars. Okay, so what is that? It's 410,$409 per person, essentially, of the 66,000. So if they had gotten their full PFD, they would have essentially a backup of 10 months worth of food that they could have purchased for themselves. 10 months worth of food. But the legislature said, no, no, you can't have$1,500. You can only have$1,000, you can't have the$2,000, you can't have the$25, you can't have the$3,700 that you would have gotten. We needed that to spend on X. And like you said, now all of a sudden it's a crisis because uh, well, we spent the money on something else, which we thought was more important. And it turns out it's not more important than people eating. Surprise! It's not more important than people eating. It's a simple$409 a month that they could have had and had in the bank and be ready to go to pay for their to their for their family's food, but they just couldn't do it.
SPEAKER_00:It this is, I mean, it sort of reveals something else, right? It reveals that those legislators who vote for PFD cuts don't trust, don't, don't value, don't, aren't confident that the recipients are going to spend the money in a way that that benefits the recipients, I guess. Uh, that that somehow, you know, we know better, the legislature knows better how to spend your$2,700 or$2,675. The legislature knows better how to spend that uh than you do. Um, and and we know better how to how to you know spend it on your behalf uh than uh than you do. And then it gets you know, something like this happens and it's revealed that, oh my gosh, they would have had more than enough to to cover their cover their food. There's an interesting study that I'll go back to at some point and do a deeper dive on, but there's a study that looked at how um uh those in the lower income brackets actually what at what they actually do with PFDs. Um, and turns out that on the whole, they save them and then they allocate them out over the year, uh, either to pay credit cards or to pay rent or to do this or pay for food or or this, that, or the other thing. It's not they don't blow them on one-time expenses. The people who blow them on one-time expenses are largely those in the upper income brackets who don't need the money anyway. And so, what do we do with this? We'll go, we'll go spend it on a vacation or we'll go spend it on something else. Those in the lower income brackets, the ones the legislature isn't trusting, the the ones the legislature says you have to do it through food stamps, you can only get your money through food stamps, those people are actually saving the money and would have had that money in their in their savings accounts to be able to pay for food. StreamYard crashed.
SPEAKER_01:I still had internet, but stream yard crashed out. Uh, but how ironic, Brad. I was just saying before I got so rudely interrupted, that uh, you know, how ironic that these are the people we know that we know how to spend your money until we don't, but then trust us for more. This is the I mean, that's that's it. That that's the that's the whole thing there, right?
SPEAKER_00:I mean, that's that's why that's why the PFD is so important. You you you it is it is Alaskan's in Alaskan's individual share of their commonly held wealth, it is their dividend from their commonly held wealth. They ought to be trusted to know how to spend it. And if you've got a few bad apples, you know, like like everybody wants to, you know, use the example of the snow machines or whatever the heck, you know, people that that one-time spending that that people do that they use as the example of how you why you can't trust these people. If if if you got a few people who do that, okay, that's fine. But what you're doing is you're punishing, punishing the remainder, the ones who go out and save that money and use that money and spread it out over the year and use it for basic necessities and use it to have a cushion if something happens like uh like you know, snap, snap is cut off. What you're doing is you're punishing those people by take by taking their money away. And this the whole snap debacle just exposes that for what it is. You know, we know better how to spend your money up until you know some government program that we're depending upon goes away. Then turns out we didn't know how to better spend your money.
SPEAKER_01:Exactly. Well, and that's the thing. I mean, this is the whole planned economy, planned this, planned that. And it turns out that bureaucracies and politicians don't know better than the average person or the free market in how to make these things work the best. And that's part of the problem, 100% for sure. And there's like you said, there's it's hypocrisy. It's a combination of it's it's ironic, it's hip, it's hip irony. It's hypocrisy and irony boiled together into an utter stew of of badness. So it's crazy. Uh, all right, Brad. Well, everybody wants to know what Brad's doing. Where are you at? What are you doing? What are you listening to?
SPEAKER_00:Where are you going? It's music. I'm in Seattle. Uh, I'm going to a concert tonight. Uh, it's a doubleheader of a Scottish band that I love and a U.S. Irish music band uh that I love uh at uh the triple door. Some will know the venue in Seattle. And uh so I'm in Seattle to following the music to uh to go to a concert.
SPEAKER_01:The Pied Piper of Music draws Brad all over the world. And what are you gonna do? It's the only thing that he is fun at parties, contrary to our commentary here on the program. It's just the musical parties that he likes to go to. Yeah, there you go. There you go. That's what it is. He doesn't like those big cocktail parties with all the politicians. He'd rather go to a music festival. And I can't say I blame him.
SPEAKER_00:They they certainly don't like me at those cocktail parties. Because I asked them questions. Oops, no, we don't want to answer that question.
SPEAKER_01:No, yeah, we'd we'd like to ask them questions, Brad. And uh, you know, I'd love to see you on the other side of the microphone in front of some of these Senate committees and and House committees because how how do they answer the questions? They just the problem is that they can't, they can't actually answer the questions and articulate an answer, and that's that's the hypocrisy you're pointing out here, and I think it's great. Um, so it's uh it's good to have you on. Anyway, thanks for covering for me for the minute there that I was going. Like, I'm like, oh well, Brad's got it. Don't worry. It looks like Brad's still on. It'll be fine. Brad's there.
SPEAKER_00:I don't know what Brad was saying, oh, Michael's gone. I don't know what to do now.
SPEAKER_01:Well, just just uh Phil, fill, fill. You're you you've done the radio long enough, you know what to do. So all right. Well, Brad, thank you. Um thank you for coming on board, my friend. I hope you enjoy your musical interlude, and we look forward to talking to you again next week.
SPEAKER_00:Michael, as always, thanks for having me. Well, that's a wrap for another week's edition of the weekly top three from Alaskans for Sustainable Budgets. Thank you again for joining us. Remember that you can find past episodes on our YouTube, SoundCloud, Spotify, and Substack pages. And keep track of us during the week on Facebook and Twitter. This has been Brad Keithley, Managing Director of Alaskans for Sustainable Budgets. We look forward to you joining us again next week on the weekly top three.
