Dunleavy scales back his lies on Permanent Fund growth, but won't admit it

Gov. Mike Dunleavy has been continuously lying to Alaskans about the Permanent Fund and its growth in 2020.

He has invented different numbers for the amount of growth, saying at times the fund grew by $11 billion and at others, that it was $10 billion.

The truth is that the fund grew by $4.8 billion in 2020, making this a lie of from $5.2 billion to $6.2 billion—putting Dunleavy in first place as the author of the biggest financial lie in Alaska history.

The Anchorage Daily News called him on the lie in an editorial a week ago, but the news coverage of Dunleavy’s claims in that newspaper and in all other news organizations has not made it clear that Dunleavy has been lying for months.

In his latest tale, Dunleavy has scaled back his false claims, but he isn’t admitting that he lied about 2020 growth. He wants to pay dividends of $5,000 per person, which would cost more than $3 billion.

“As I have continuously stated, this represents less than one year of fund growth,” Dunleavy says in a press release that will be printed by Alaska newspapers with no questions asked.

Dunleavy is correct that $3.2 billion is less than the $4.8 billion the fund grew by in 2020.

He’s lying when he says this is something he has “continuously stated.”

He has been continuously lying.

In late December, Dunleavy narrated this 39-second state-funded video in which he said the state could easily afford to spend $3 billion on dividends. “So the payments represent just a few months of profits from this year’s permanent fund earnings,” Dunleavy falsely claimed.

Also in December, Dunleavy said the proposal to spend a total of $6.3 billion from the Permanent Fund this year—about half for dividends and half for government—was entirely affordable because the fund had grown by $11 billion since March.

“I am proposing we utilize just over half of this year’s growth to address the 100-year crisis before us,” Dunleavy said in a press release that nearly every Alaska newspaper published in full.

He repeated the $11 billion claim in an interview with the Juneau Empire in January.

What Dunleavy neglected to mention is that the Permanent Fund lost nearly $7 billion in the first three months of 2020, which makes the $11 billion claim political fraud.

In a Facebook video in early January, he revised his false 2020 earnings claim to $10 billion.

“We have an opportunity unlike any other state as a result of that” $10 billion, said Dunleavy.

In his new press release, Dunleavy claims that anyone who opposes his plan is opposing “the single mom who has been laid off for months,” the laid-off waitress in Anchorage, as well as all those who are having troubling paying their bills or have fallen behind on the rent.

And anyone who questions the $5,000 payment plan is part of the “anti-PFD crowd” who want table scraps for Alaskans and more for government.

“We can’t afford to allow the lawless dividend opponents to distract us with bad-faith arguments,” said Dunleavy.

So anyone who opposes the Dunleavy plan, including every legislator with a real grasp of the numbers, is “lawless” and making bad-faith arguments?

It’s no surprise that Dunleavy has proven to be inept in dealing with the Legislature and Alaskans. Whoever wrote this claptrap for Dunleavy at state expense should know that these cheap shots won’t work.

What we haven’t heard from Dunleavy is any explanation for the next stop on his fantasy fiscal tour—he says more than $1 billion in new state revenue will appear on July 1, 2022.

Dunleavy won’t introduce a new tax or a tax increase, which makes his fantasy tour impossible. All he wants to talk about now is his giant supersized dividend plan for this year, avoiding all difficult questions about state finances.

His approach would probably wipe out the Permanent Fund earnings reserve, ending future dividends. He is the king of bad-faith arguments.

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