fbpx

Republican-Sanctioned Alaska Oil Fund Checks Are White Socialism

Republican-Sanctioned Alaska Oil Fund Checks Are White Socialism

Alaska
Some experts say citizens in Alaska are benefiting from a socialist policy. Just don’t tell anyone that in the fiercely Republican state. A family photo of an Inupiat Eskimo mother, father, and son, photographed in Noatak, Alaska, by Edward Sheriff Curtis circa 1929. The scan was made from a black and white film copy negative.

Some experts say Alaskans are benefitting from a socialist policy. Just don’t tell anyone in the Tea party, fiercely Republican, red state that.

“However, a little known fact is that Alaska taxes the oil and gas corporations operating there and distributes the proceeds on an annual basis equally among every man, woman,  and child living in the state,” San Diego Free Press reported. 

The Alaska Permanent Fund is a constitutionally established state-owned investment fund under Governor Jay Hammond. It was established using oil revenues. Since 1982, it has paid out an annual dividend to everyone in Alaska. It grew from an initial investment of $734,000 in 1977 to approximately $53.7 billion as of July 9, 2015.

Listen to GHOGH with Jamarlin Martin | Episode 67: Jamarlin Martin Jamarlin goes solo to discuss the NFL’s entertainment and “social justice” deal with Jay-Z. We look back at the Barclays gentrification issue in the documentary “A Genius Leaves The Hood: The Unauthorized Story of Jay-Z.”

“In 2015, with oil prices high, the dividend totaled $2,072 per person, or $8,288 for a family of four. By 2017, it had been cut down to $1,100 due to money being diverted to other purposes; in cheaper gas years, it can dip into the $800 to $900 range,” Vox reported. Interestingly, former governor and vice president candidate Sarah Palin, a Republican and Tea Party supporter, received $22,883 from then fund in 2008 for herself, then-husband Todd, sons Track and Trig and daughters Bristol, Willow, and Piper.

Despite the success of the program in the heart of a red state, conservatives say similar proposed plans for other states will lead to people not wanting to work and lead to economic disaster.

Economists Damon Jones of UChicago and Ioana Marinescu of UPenn decided to look into this claim. The focus of their study was to look into whether the annual cash payments caused Alaskans not to want to work. Their conclusion: not really. According to the two, “the dividend had no effect on employment” overall.

According to Jones and Marinescu, the state of Alaska has been able to  use its oil wealth to give all its residents cash for free and erase extreme poverty. And this has not had a negative effect on its economy.

So why can’t this be done in other states? Ad why do Alsanks — and Republicans — refuse to say this is a socialist or socialist-type policy?

“But there’s a big caveat: Alaska pays these checks out of an investment fund financed by oil money. Taxing or collecting royalties for natural resources is just about the best way for the government to pay for stuff. Oil is in the ground, there’s a limited supply of it, and taxing it doesn’t reduce the amount left in the ground. It might reduce companies’ incentive to bring it out of the ground, but frankly, given climate change, that’s probably a good thing. Relying too heavily on oil money can cause political dysfunction, but distributing the money as cash to citizens helps reduce opportunities for corruption,” Vox reported.

Others have thought about taking the Alaska concept to other locales. Hillary Clinton, for example, thought about proposing a national expansion of the Permanent Fund under the title “Alaska for America” during the 2016 campaign. She didn’t’ because she couldn’t make the financing make sense.