Sorry, you are not 'owed' back dividends

You may have seen this document that claims to stake a legal claim to thousands of dollars in state money.

Don’t waste money on a stamp sending it to legislators, including Rep. Mike Prax.

There is no legal claim to be staked for back dividends. The state doesn’t owe you a dime. This is consumer fraud.

Dressing up a political argument with a few statutes to try to create a veneer that this is founded in law will only fool the most gullible. This is aimed at those who know nothing about how state law and the budget process really works.

The so-called PFD Defenders and the so-called Interior Patriots haven’t gone to court with this campaign because even they know it’s 100 percent claptrap. If you think otherwise, take your case to court and file a lawsuit over the alleged “debt.”

“I was eligible and should have received the following payments” and “I am owed the unpaid balance, plus the earnings on that sum,” and “please mail the check to my mailing address” is textbook whining.

You are not owed the unpaid balance.

Alaskans established the Permanent Fund in 1976 by a constitutional amendment that said the principal would be invested and the Alaska Legislature would decide how to spend the earnings. That remains true today.

Most of the people who live in Alaska today were not here in 1976 and don’t know the circumstances of the vote and the reason the measure was popular. It was approved by a two-to-one margin.

I voted for the amendment, thinking the fund would provide a source of money for the state when the oil ran out. Those who claim the amendment created the dividend don’t know what they are talking about.

The dividend came along in 1980, the product of the unexpected immediate flood of oil income that followed the revolution in Iran. The U.S. Supreme Court rejected the 1980 law and the Legislature revised it in 1982. The Legislature has always held the power to appropriate money for specific programs, including the dividend.

The entire discussion about dividends is premised on the false assumption that the only program of importance to Alaskans is the dividend. Gov. Mike Dunleavy, like many before him, sees the dividend as his ticket to reelection, but he refuses to say what state programs he would cut to pay for larger dividends. His grandstanding on the dividend is deceptive at heart because of this omission..