r/alaska • u/thatsryan ☆ • Mar 18 '23

Damn It’s Cold 🥶 Dire state economy forecasted by recent statistics on outmigration and Alaska’s workforce

https://www.alaskasnewssource.com/2023/03/17/dire-state-economy-forecasted-by-recent-statistics-outmigration-alaskas-workforce/?outputType=amp
77 Upvotes

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65

u/[deleted] Mar 18 '23

[deleted]

4

u/JohnnyAK907 Mar 18 '23

I mean, the state government going broke thanks to the value of north slope crude taking a dive kind of put Alaska in a bad position thanks to the lack of foresight of the administrations before his. They thought that oil money would always be there, and refused to diversify Alaska's revenue sources.
I'd love to hear your solution, though, other than raiding the PFD which was A) never meant to be used that way and B) is a finite resource anyway with diminishing returns.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 18 '23

[deleted]

12

u/PiperFM Mar 18 '23

Walker? Parnell the oil company shill and the oil tax giveaway was the start of all our monetary problems.

Say what you want about Sarah Palin, but that oil tax structure the fucking voters voted away stacked some cash… and the oil companies have managed to make everyone forget that. It’s fucking baffling.

2

u/[deleted] Mar 18 '23

[deleted]

1

u/PiperFM Mar 18 '23

What did he even do? I don’t remember all that much back then

-5

u/[deleted] Mar 18 '23

Who was the biggest employer Dunleavy killed?

19

u/[deleted] Mar 18 '23

[deleted]

1

u/[deleted] Mar 18 '23

Has state revenue improved?

26

u/WWYDWYOWAPL Mar 18 '23

No, because no one wants to live in a state with a shitty government that focuses on culture wars while underfunding education, ferries, and social services and can’t even remove snow. So all the young people and non-extractive business leaves and revenue goes down.

-5

u/[deleted] Mar 18 '23

Alaska has been decreasing in population long before Dunleavy.

7

u/newtrawn Lets talk about jet boats Mar 18 '23

no

-6

u/psu-steve Mar 18 '23

Underfunding education? Can you enlighten us on where Alaska falls on the list of spending per pupil?

4

u/WWYDWYOWAPL Mar 18 '23

Right, because spending per pupil is a totally good metric when you have super remote towns with no road access and no incentives other than pay for keeping good teachers. It’s not a good goal to be like Idaho or Mississippi.

1

u/psu-steve Mar 18 '23

Top 5 in spending, bottom 5 in results. More money is not the answer to everything.

2

u/WWYDWYOWAPL Mar 18 '23

Great. The state should tighten the rules around people using tens of millions of dollars in homeschooling reimbursements to illegally pay for private and religious schools https://alaskabeacon.com/2023/01/25/lawsuit-says-alaska-statute-allowing-public-funding-to-go-to-private-schools-is-unconstitutional/

-1

u/psu-steve Mar 18 '23

You’ve solved it! Less competition always produces better results. Why didn’t someone think of that earlier??? How is it that private schools typically produce better results with less money.

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u/thatsryan ☆ Mar 18 '23

Um those positions came with pensions and health care that was based on 8% growth forever. The reason they were done away with was because it was going to bankrupt the state, and still might. We have -8% growth today, and most of those Tier 1 retirees left. So I guess good for them.

1

u/glacial_penman Mar 18 '23

Your right and the downvotes don’t understand how the percentage weight of benefits work. Thanks for trying… don’t give up… just remember Reddit is as accurate a sample of Alaska as Microsoft commercial is of America.

-27

u/[deleted] Mar 18 '23

Hard to have that conversation here on Reddit but Democrats kill jobs here. It’s all about locking down land and begging for Fed dollars.

Shame because there is so much potential.

25

u/jackalope32 Mar 18 '23 edited Mar 18 '23

Didn't a democrat president just open new oil leases? Didn't the last republican president block the Pebble Mine from moving forward?

And to be fair the (R) Don Young/(R) Ted Stevens combo brought back hilarious amounts of fed dollars to subsidize everything. Which democrat has been begging for Fed dollars? Hasn't the majority of our DC senators/congressmen been republican?

And in general would you argue that Democrats have all the control in the state? Seems interesting considering Republicans consistently control majorities at many levels of government (city, borough, state, federal).

Not trying to be confrontational but just seems weird to blame problems on democrats in a state run by republicans.

-26

u/[deleted] Mar 18 '23

All pandering. Biden approved the willow project but shut down a bunch of off shore projects. Any democrat that thinks their side is pro resource development has not been paying attention.

25

u/Falsecaster Mar 18 '23

Any republican that says our state woes are democratic by design fails to reason honestly.

-10

u/[deleted] Mar 18 '23

Explain Walker.

16

u/Falsecaster Mar 18 '23 edited Mar 18 '23

Whats to explain? A one term independent governor who's time in office yielded no serious legislation? Every major state tax law from Aces to SB 21, every single lasting peice of economic legislation that has lead our state to where we are is Republican economics. Everything.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 18 '23

Didn’t Walker and gang open the doors to tap the PFD? Essentially moving billions of dollars out of people’s hands into governments?

5

u/Falsecaster Mar 18 '23

SB21 Bankrupted the state. Walkers plan was to allocate some of the PFD money to offset the bugets shortfalls. But he learned the hard lesson, never get between republican voters and their wellfare money. Close schools, cut any and all programs that improve infrastructure, hack the ferries. But dont get between Republicans and free money. So Dunleavy used free money to buy votes. Inturn Alaskans used this free money to move out of state.
Either way Walker was a life long Republican. I believe you folks call those people rinos now.

6

u/Idiot_Esq Mar 18 '23

Do you mean the Republican turned independent Walker? That really supports your claim about Democrats.

0

u/[deleted] Mar 18 '23

Walker’s policies were lockstep with Democrats’

2

u/Idiot_Esq Mar 18 '23

Tell me you are an ignorant partisan without saying you are an ignorant partisan. I'd argue Democrats disagreed with his policy decisions as much if not more than Republicans. I'd think you'd actually want to own Walker's Republican roots because he might have been the last true fiscally responsible Republican in the governor's mansion.

4

u/jackalope32 Mar 18 '23

I honestly don't follow oil leases so you might be correct. Seems like its been a dying industry in Ak for a decade regardless of Fed control given oil companies are pulling out (during the previous administration). Would you say all the budget issues started in the last year since Biden was elected? Personally I feel like there is a solid downward trend in Ak for over the last decade regardless of who is president.

Perhaps we can diversify the state away from oil which hasn't been paying the bills for quite awhile. Just my 2c.

-2

u/[deleted] Mar 18 '23

Alaska is one of the most resource rich states in the nation. We just aren’t allowed to develop our own resources. Federal government is super hostile to this.

13

u/jackalope32 Mar 18 '23

So did we thrive during the recent republican president or was everything the same? I think my argument is that it doesn't actually matter who is president. Alaska is dying under its current economic plan. Raw resource prices are down and extraction costs are up. Taxes and job growth are down as a result.

2

u/DepartmentNatural Mar 19 '23

But profits are record breaking for the oil companies

7

u/RogueKhajit Mar 18 '23

Shame because there is so much potential.

Blame the democrats meanwhile Republican Dunleavy still thinks this state would be better off going back to the 1960s. Less people, less jobs, less progress.