The Alaska Legislature is no different than a typical American household – torn between spending every last dollar from their paycheck on immediate wants or saving some for the inevitable future needs. When the wants win out, money often is short...

Elected officials, ballot initiative supporters and opponents, campaign managers and anyone else who writes, texts or tweets outlandish claims and promises should be required to stay after the election and write on the blackboard (remember those)...

The great tax debate in Alaska sounds similar to the age-old question of whether it is less painful to yank off the bandage quickly or peel it off slowly and gently. I have found that it just doesn’t matter all that much how I pull off the bandage....

Most Alaska state budget watchers follow oil prices, fully realizing that they can bounce around like a small plane on a windy day, creating that same stomach-churning queasiness when they drop. The estimated difference between Alaska North Slope cru...

Alaska is 30 years into state budget deficits, borrowing billions from savings to pay the bills. Gov. Mike Dunleavy is five years into the job, still pledging mega Permanent Fund dividends even if the money isn’t there. Three months ago, Dunleavy i...

When I was a kid, I suppose my role models were mostly professional athletes. Sports was everything (no offense to school or my parents or Boy Scouts leader). Though I never was very good at any of them, particularly sports or school or being an...

There is no wisdom in the state House majority’s decision to put Permanent Fund dividends ahead of the public education budget. Paying for larger PFDs before schools is not the way to build a better state, to keep families from leaving, to entice...

Three-term Nikiski Rep. Ben Carpenter is right, the state needs a sustainable, long-term fiscal plan. Give him credit for raising the issue. Talk of a balanced fiscal plan has lingered since 1990 — before several of today’s legislators were even...

It’s embarrassing that it took billions of dollars in losses for some legislators to acknowledge that the state’s fiscal house is leaking worse than a broken downspout on a Southeast Alaska roof. It’s too bad Gov. Mike Dunleavy acts like he...

After years of legislative debate over the size of the Permanent Fund dividend, reasonable voices are starting to grow louder, maybe even hopefully strong enough to outvote the irresponsible catcalls for an unaffordable dividend. It’s a welcome...

It’s bad enough that the world stacks, dumps and burns mountains of gallon milk jugs, water bottles, package wrappers and take-out food containers every day. But after we finish our last bites, many of those plastic bits make it into the oceans,...

The state wasn’t concerned as much about future profits as it was asserting and protecting Alaska’s rights to see oil flow from lands within its borders when it paid millions of dollars for federal leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. I...

Alaska’s senior U.S. senator — and former state legislator — Lisa Murkowski addressed a joint session of the Legislature last week, covering the usual issues of oil and gas, economic development and lots of federal dollars for local projects....

The losers in last year’s elections in Alaska say change is bad. Of course they do. Political losers seldom blame themselves when voters fill in the oval next to someone else’s name. But whether last year’s change suits their own personal...

There might be a way to avoid federal income taxes on the Alaska Permanent Fund dividend. But it would mean admitting that the annual payment to Alaskans is a political decision not at all tied to earnings of the savings account. It could mean changi...

Getting caught between a rock and a hard place is easier. At least you can rent a backhoe and move the rock. Getting politically caught between more money for public schools and even more money for the Permanent Fund dividend will be the hardest plac...

Wrangell is getting older. Not just the town, but its residents. Which means its labor pool is getting older and leaving the workforce, with fewer younger people to fill job openings. The numbers are not good for businesses, the services they want...

The staff, faculty and students at Wrangell’s three public schools work hard and believe in the importance of education. Parents help out with volunteer work, and the overall community pitches in, too. The borough this year is contributing the...

Gov. Mike Dunleavy, who has made a political career out of promising more than the state can afford while never supporting taxes to pay the bills, has a new, almost magical plan to help cover his budget deficits. It’s all about collecting so much...

For the 10th year in a row, more Alaskans moved out last year than new residents moved in. That’s a draining fact, with no real plan to plug the leak. To confirm the Alaska Department of Labor’s statistics about population and persistent...

No doubt liars have served in public office ever since the first candidate printed a handbill and later evolved to taping a radio or TV commercial or clicking on social media. It’s as American as apple pie, and as dishonest as the pie stuffed with...

It’s been almost 40 years since I read “The Good War,” a Pulitzer Prize-winning history as told by more than 120 participants in World War II. They remembered the fighting, the injuries and deaths, the personal sacrifices at home and even the m...

The world will continue to need liquid fuels refined from crude oil for decades. But it likely will need less in the decades ahead as it transitions to renewable energy sources in hopes of stemming the damages caused by a warming planet. Which means...

More people moved out of Alaska than moved in every year between 2015 and 2021. If not for a healthy birth rate, the state population would have shrunk even more than it did. Wrangell has steadily lost population over the past 20 years, with the...