Dunleavy says Bible promotes mining and drilling federal lands to the max
Gov. Mike Dunleavy is boasting to the rest of the nation that Alaska has more than $80 billion in the bank.
If you want to reduce federal spending in Alaska, a position promoted by Rep. Nick Begich the Third, this will give other members of Congress and the Trump administration easy ammunition to claim that Alaska can afford to pay for whatever it asks the federal government to do.
Dunleavy’s office likely had someone write a column under his name that appeared in the Wall Street Journal February 17 praising Donald Trump for signing an executive order to create a national sovereign wealth fund that is going to contain who knows what.
“While that sent people in Washington and beyond scrambling to look up what he was talking about, the news was welcomed by Alaskans,” the Dunleavy press release said.
It would have been more accurate to say “the news was ignored by Alaskans,” but then again, Dunleavy is doing all he can to flatter Trump and praise his financial genius. Trump is creating a Golden Age for Alaska, Dunleavy says.
The two-part message of the Dunleavy press release and an interview that followed on Fox News was: (1) Donald Trump is brilliant. (2) The Alaska Permanent Fund is a blueprint for America.
“We’ve already seen the good this policy will do. A sovereign wealth fund is a government-owned investment fund that manages and builds public assets for the benefit of the nation,” Dunleavy said.
“Alaska already has a sovereign wealth fund. Established in 1976, the Alaska Permanent Fund is now valued at more than $80 billion. By using the state’s wildly successful model, Mr. Trump can usher in a new era of prosperity and governmental innovation at the federal level.”
While no one, including Trump, has said exactly how this fund would work, Dunleavy seems to envision a future in which federal lands are sold or leased to companies that will pay plenty to mine, drill, cut timber, etc.
The Bible says this is the way to go, according to Dunleavy’s newspaper sermon—unload federal assets for whatever corporations, rich people and rich nations are willing to pay.
‘The Bible’s parable of the talents offers a valuable lesson for government, as it does for spiritual life. The good and faithful servant is the one who takes his employer’s money and increases it, while the unfaithful one simply buries it in the ground. When it comes to America’s abundant natural wealth, we face a similar choice,” Dunleavy said.
The governor’s sermon does not say anything about saving for the next generation or the generation after that. Or that the good and faithful servant could be a foreign mining company hoping to make a killing from public resources.
The reverend governor also didn’t mention the long-term value of leaving wealth in the ground that belongs not just to those alive now, but to all future Americans.
“As citizens, the federal government is our servant, and we don’t have to be content with letting our public wealth stagnate,” Dunleavy claims.
Leaving resources in the ground is not stagnation. It’s part of wise management.
Alaska and its governor are in no position to lecture anyone about how to manage money or resources.
Dunleavy didn’t mention in his Wall Street Journal boast that his budget features a giant deficit and giant deficits for years to come, adding up to many billions of dollars that don’t exist.
I rarely agree with the Wall Street Journal editorial page, but in this instance the newspaper is exactly right about Trump’s goofball plan. It doesn’t add up because of the enormous debt the nation has, the Journal said.
“Why has no President done this before? One reason is the U.S. perennially runs budget deficits, projected at $1.9 trillion for this fiscal year. Countries with sovereign wealth funds typically invest surplus revenue from commodity sales or excess foreign exchange reserves from trade surpluses, e.g., China,” the newspaper said.
“The biggest danger is that such a fund will be used to invest in private companies. Politicians would love a separate vehicle to direct capital without having to go through Congress. Mr. Trump gave the game away on Monday when he suggested such a fund could buy TikTok,” the newspaper said Feb. 6.
Rather than create new wealth, the Journal said, the Trump plan would likely “take resources from the private economy, fund political boondoggles, and mess with the business decisions of private companies.”
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