The opinions expressed on this show are those of the host and not of iHeart Media or its employees. Thank you for listening to NewsRadio 650 KENI. Amy Demboski, the show starts now. Our lines are open at 907-522-0650. This is The Morning Drive on NewsRadio 650, KENI. Good morning! It is finally Friday, the last day of February, February 28th. I gotta tell you, Daryl, this month has just whoosh, whizzed by.
This whole year is pretty much just whooshed by. Whoosh! We are already practically in March. I looked yesterday at our senior newsletter. I saw that. I have a hot copy of it. Yep. But I saw that. I seen your newsletter. You did? Where did you see it? In my hand? Yeah, I seen your newsletter. I know it's early. I know, ladies and gentlemen. I'm sorry it's early.
Yeah, I was going to say, but I'm looking at it, and it's very March festive. I'm totally digging it. I don't know what it is about March, but I just love March. September's my favorite. It goes out like a lamb. And you're on a roll today. You're on a roll, my friend. You're on a roll. Nope. I can't believe we're already talking. Okay. You know, March, Mardi Gras. St. Patrick's Day. I mean, it's just whoosh, whoosh.
As fast as it is. I hope it slows down a little. So we have time to smell the roses. She mentioned Mardi Gras. Tuesday is Fat Tuesday. We are literally five days away from Fat Tuesday. So make sure you get your king cake. Days away. Where do you get your king cake in Anchorage? So, you know...
I cheat. I just go to our local Big's Box stores. They usually have them. They're not great cakes, but they have the baby in them. So, you know, just make sure you don't choke on the baby also. Our local bread companies, like the House of Bread and stuff, I'm pretty sure they make the king cakes over there also, so.
Oh, I'm going to have to check it out, my friend. I've never actually had a king cake. Oh, king cake is delicious. It's kind of like the Cajun version of a fruit cake, but without as much fruit and more... bread type thing. I mean, it's really good. I like king cake.
Got the frosting and the colors. Just like I said, be careful of the baby. The thing about a king cake is there's usually a baby baked into the cake, and there's some prize, depending on who you're with, for what happens. The people I used to hang out with, it was actually not a good prize. It was if you got the baby, you got to help clean up after the party.
Yeah, I was going to say, isn't the baby supposed to bring you good fortune for the year or something like that? Lead up after the party. That's good fortune. That's it. That is good fortune. See, that's humility and service. So there you go, Daryl. There you go. Well, I've seen them on Food Network. I've seen them, like, make them, and I've seen the whole thing. I just never have had one. I'm very excited about this prospect. You know, Riley and Erin have started their drive to Louisiana.
My son's getting stationed down there, and so it's going to give me a good excuse to go to Louisiana. I've always wanted to go to Louisiana. I've never been. Oh, yeah. Even if he's not in New Orleans. You've got to fly into New Orleans to get just about anywhere else in Louisiana. So, oops, happened to hit Bourbon Street. My bad.
Yeah, I was going to say, it'll probably happen. It'll probably happen. Well, you know, I'm looking around on my announcements, and there's really not very many today. It's super, super light today for community announcements. I will just run through very quickly. The ones that I do see, there's nothing for the Matsu, including Wasilla or Palmer today. The Municipality of Anchorage, they have a total limited road service area board meeting tonight at 630 at Great Lutheran.
There we go. I got it out. So, again, that will be tonight at 630. But that's the only one that I see for boards and commissions. Now, the Anchorage Assembly themselves is busy this morning. They have a work session at 1030 this morning to confirm their new library director. At 1140, they have a confirmation hearing to confirm Kelly Toth. She is the Solid Wage Services Director. And then at 1220, they have a work session regarding the hearing of David Persinger.
who is the general manager of AWWU, which is Anchorage Water and Wastewater Utility. And then their final work session will be at 1 o'clock. It's regarding AO 2024-105S alternate versions. and amendments. That'll be at City Hall Conference Room 155. We talked about that briefly yesterday. That's relating to building standards. It's a Title 21 issue. So that's municipal building codes and development type stuff.
That's what that is. If you want more information, just go to muni.org. Look at the meeting that you're interested in. As you click on it, it'll bring you to more information. You can also just go to muni.org, click on the Assembly tab, and under the Meetings tab, you can find all the information there, too. All right. There's no announcements today for Kenai, either the borough or...
The City of Kenai, there's no meetings for the city of SELDOTNA, but today is the last day that you can apply for the Storefront Improvement Program grant. That is, the city of Sadatna is now accepting applications for storefront improvement program. The grant offers up to $7,500 to local businesses for projects to rehabilitate Sadatna's storefronts and help promote a thriving local.
economy and attractive streetscape applications are due no later than February 28th 2025 for program guidelines and more information you can go to sell dot org forward slash storefront or call the Planning Department at 907-262-9107. And that is it for local government announcements. I do want to remind everybody that the Valley Republican Women's Club of Alaska is having their annual Lincoln Day dinner. That's going to be on Saturday, March 15th at Settlers Bay Lodge at 6.30 p.m.
The keynote speaker is going to be none other than Congressman Nick Begich. If you want to attend, I recommend you buy your tickets because these usually do sell out. So I wouldn't wait and expect to buy your tickets at the door. I would encourage you to buy your tickets ahead of time. Again, the 2025 Lincoln Day Dinner will be at March 15th, 6.30 p.m. at Settlers Bay Lodge. You can get your tickets at vrwak.com.
That stands for ValleyRepublicanWomenAlaska.com. So V-R-W-A-K.com. And you'll be able to get your tickets there. Those are really the only announcements that I had on my list of announcements for this morning. But, Daryl, I was looking at the weather, and I couldn't believe it when I woke up. I'm looking at my weather station right now, 39.4 in Palmer. What?
39.4. 39.4. We win. We win. I don't know what you are. I don't know what you are, but we win. I'm a boy, and my pronouns are me and me. Loser. Pronouns are you lose. That is true. 30 degrees. I'm 30 degrees here in Anchorage. Now, they do say we're supposed to get up to 40 by this afternoon.
What can I say? There's a lot of hot air in Palmer. What, did all the legislators show up or something? What? I was just thinking about myself. Oh, well, okay. But that's the normal one out there. That shouldn't heat it up that much. You tie with big like big legs 30, okay? You know Keenai 33 Fairbanks is a little chillier Fairbanks is checking in right now for
You sure you don't have any, like, moose standing outside where your temperature gauge is maybe blowing on it a little bit? No idea. Well, the sun's not up. Usually in the summertime, I can blame it on it. My house has, like, 100% southern exposure, right? Like, it's like... It's like in the middle of, you know, basically the wind tunnel. Wouldn't that put you on the North Pole?
Southern exposure. If you had 100% southern exposure, that would put you on the North Pole. Well, I'm just saying, in the summertime, you go out on the porch, and it's so funny. I've experimented with... placement of thermometers and man, you got it on the front porch sometimes and you have to wear shoes because you burn your feet. I mean, it gets hot. Hot.
You can do the proper thermometer method like the military does and some of the government agencies with the black ball that's got the fabric on it and you squirt water onto it. And it actually measures your temperature by what the water on it. comes up to get the actual ambient temperature. It seems like too much work for me, to be honest. I can't commit to it. Quasi new breaking news that I hadn't heard yet. Trump assigned another executive order.
Oh, wonderful. This is the official language of the United States now. Well, see, that should have been a long time ago, I've got to be honest. These are gibbons that we never had to see. These are things that were unspoken. They never had to be said because everybody knew it and it was guaranteed. And unfortunately, after the last four years...
Yeah, now you have to say it. Yeah, you have to actually write it down. You know, I saw an article this morning, a California councilwoman, her husband was arrested by ICE. I mean, I was like, oh, federal agents arrested Councilwoman her husband at a Walmart parking lot on Monday.
Yurita Perez, who sits on the Coachella City Council, captured the moment with Federal Bureau of Investigation Agents surrounded them before arresting her husband, Istro Jimenez-Benez. I'm sure I'm butchering that, but that's what it looks like to me. My family was just separated. They have taken my kid's father. Those are the desperate cries of help, the council member said in the video shared on social media. Like, here's the thing.
If you've been with this dude long enough to have children with him, why didn't you apply to get him a green card? Bingo. Why didn't you apply? There wasn't a legal path. Maybe, maybe, you know, maybe they did, and it just hasn't come through yet. You know, maybe so. But if you're a council person, you probably know whether your spouse is legal or not legal. If you're somebody who's in elected office and you take the oath of office and you say you'll support all laws, you know, all laws.
state federal and local that's what my office of office said then you would expect you would respect the law so i gotta be honest with you i really don't have any sympathy for people that are illegal i mean i i understand Especially their kids, right? They're not going to understand. The kids don't know anything about the parent's status. But, you know, again, the law is the law. There's a legal way to immigrate to this country. I just...
I've got to be honest with you, I'm more interested in our national security and protecting our sovereignty. than I am the touchy-feely stories. And the great thing is, what we were saying about unwritten things, you know, things that you didn't have, that everybody was known. This was actually a written thing, okay? Everybody knew what it was. It was written. It was law. And again, all of a sudden, over the last...
Well, that's since Mr. Obama was in there. It's been this, yeah, you know. And it's like, no, these are our lives. The people are sovereign. You saw it in Obama. You saw it really exasperated under Biden. I think what you saw was an intentional, deliberate... Not even just incremental. I mean, under Biden, it was rapid degradation of American values and systems on purpose. That's what I think.
All right. Well, I'm looking at their website right now. I was trying to see if I could find it. They don't have it posted yet. If he just signed it, they don't have it posted yet. The last EO that they have up is from February 26th, from two days ago. Okay. Imagine that. We're talking about things that happened two days ago being stale. That's how fast Trump...
That's how fast Trump is working. You know, that's incredible. I will continue to watch it and see if anything else pops up on the White House's website. Right now, though, we're going to go ahead and take our first break. If you'd like to call in, be part of the show. The number is 522-0650. We'll be right back.
Welcome back. Current time, 623. A little bit later in the show, I'm expecting right at the top of the hour, Senator Rob Myers is calling in today. We're going to talk all things Alaska legislature. Because, you know... What they're talking about now is tax, tax, tax, tax, tax. Oh, they just don't have enough money. They just need to tax you. We're hearing that all over the place now. It's really coming from the Democrats.
And the left, those Republicans like Kathy Giesel that have chosen to align with the left. So we'll talk to Senator Rob Myers. and see what his thoughts are on the conversations that are happening right now in Juneau and where we may be heading. You know, my prediction, every year it's the same. They want to spend more. The governor's asking for accountability.
And then the governor ends up vetoing. I mean, I hate to be so anticlimactic about this entire process, but that's the process we've gone through over and over again. So that's why I say this legislative session and the next one, frankly. What you're going to see is it's all about the governor's race. We have a governor's race coming up, and everybody is getting their talking points ready. Republicans hate children. They're going to kick your puppies. That's what we're going to hear.
Yeah, they hate schools. They're against public workers. They're against teachers. And I'm like, you know, I know a lot of Republicans that are teachers, to be honest with you. Exactly. And I'm like, we don't hate kids. We don't hate teachers. You know what we hate? Waste, fraud, and abuse. You know what else we hate? Inefficiency. You know what else we hate? We hate do-nothing politicians.
That's what we hate. We hate inefficiency. I shouldn't say we hate politicians. We don't hate them. They just annoy us greatly. We want to see people that are actually productive with the dollars that they're given. the public trust that they're given. We want to see people that are actually very productive with their time and our money. How about that? I will tell you, I was excited when I saw who Trump tapped for number two of the Navy.
You know, California had a fun U.S. Senate race this last time, and I was really hoping this guy was going to win. Because I listened to him talking and debate, and I'm like, yeah. His name was Hung Chow. And he was a 25-year military veteran. He did special ops and different things. He served in Iraq and Afghanistan and multiple other places over the tenure of his career. But during the debate, he was really very anti-DEI. And obviously by his name, he's not a white dude.
But where he really got a lot of, I would say, attention is where he made the comment about, you know, When you're talking about recruiting people into the military, he's like, you want people, and I'm probably going to butcher this, but he basically said that you want people that are going to rip out their own guts to serve.
Like, you want alpha men. You want men that are men that are going to come in and kick butt and take names. I mean, he didn't say all that. He didn't kick back afterwards. Yeah, exactly. He said... You know, when he's talking, it says in his short video in Virginia last year, it went viral on social media after the debate with the incumbent, which he railed against, quote, drag queens, end quote, and other diversity, equity, inclusion initiatives.
in the military, the retired Navy captain argued that service branches should recruit, quote, alpha males and alpha females who are going to rip out their own guts, eat them, and ask for seconds, end quote. That was his actual quote. He said those young men and women are going to win wars. He's right. Look.
You know, this whole, oh, everybody just has to feel safe and everybody has to feel comfortable and everybody needs to feel welcome. Look, when we're talking about the military, we're talking about war fighters. We're talking about people that are there to defend our nation, and guess what? They're probably going to have to kill some people at times. Well, I like the fact that they actually started bringing up a real word, lethality. That is what our military is supposed to be.
Exactly. Look, and not every job in the military is going to be on the front lines. I recognize that, and I recognize the value of all the support folks that are out there. I was support when I was in the military. But... You know, the reality is, at any time you could be called out to do a job, and the whole point of being in the military is to defend our nation. And I'm just saying, I don't think terrorists are really afraid.
of drag queens. I don't think terrorists are really afraid of the lethality of, you know, DEI initiatives or what kind of people those bring in. Your pronouns on your... you know, uniform. Exactly, exactly. So, you know, I look at it and I'm excited to see it. But Trump has tapped Special Ops Vet Hung Chow as Navy Undersecretary.
According to the Air Force Times, the former Virginia Senate candidate, Hong Chao, will serve as the Under Secretary of the Navy, making the Special Operations Veteran the second-ranking civilian leader for the service. The move came just hours. After the Senate Armed Services Committee held confirmation hearing for John Phelan, I think is his name, Trump's pick as Navy Secretary.
So we will see. Chow's graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, deployed with Special Operations Forces in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Somalia during his 25-year military career. He also worked... on the Navy budgeting process during an assignment at the Pentagon and received his master's degree in physics from the Naval Post Graduate School. Smart guy. He's an immigrant who moved to America. He's Vietnamese. He was a Vietnamese refugee in 1975. Also spending time in West Africa during his childhood.
It says, President Trump said, Hung works tirelessly to make proud the country that gave his family a home. With Hung's experience both in combat and in the Pentagon, he will get the job done, end quote. So there you have it. I think he'll do a great job. You know, I really liked it. Like I said, that's where I actually first saw J.D. Vance was when I was like,
When he was raising to prominence, you have to remember J.D. Vance was only in the U.S. Senate for, like, two years. Like, it was, I mean, I don't want to say it was Obama-esque, but, you know, let's be honest. He barely got the seat warm, and then he rose to prominence on the national stage. What am I thinking? The national stage. And then I go back and I start looking at J.D. Vance, and what got my attention with J.D. Vance was his senatorial debate.
When he was running for senator of Ohio against an incumbent, he was sensational. That's when I realized, oh, man, like, J.D. Vance is impressive. Like, he is... He is smart and he is articulate. Hung is the same way. When I went back and he was running for Senate in Virginia against Tim Kaine. That's who he was running against, I think. I just remember that debate and I was like, yeah. Finally, men that are stepping up and talking like men. Come on.
I got to be honest with you. This whole beta male thing is exhausting to me. I just look at it like it's a problem in our society when I have more testosterone than you. I'm just speaking to the dudes now. There comes a point where, you know, I got to be honest. I'm so glad I'm married. I'm not on the dating scene. I don't have to do that. I don't think I could do it this day and age, Daryl, to be honest with you. It's all the estrogen in the plastic in the waters in the foods, all the tofu.
And by the way, speaking of food, every time you say that man's name, I start to drool and get hungry. Okay, I'm going crazy here. Because you say his name and I think puppy chow. Every time you say his name, I'm like, mmm, Puppy Chow. Mmm, Puppy Chow. I love Puppy Chow. See, now that you're saying that, now you're making me, now I'm getting, like, a sweet tooth for Puppy Chow. Oh, my God. Like I said, you said his name, like, seven times, and literally my brain's like, mmm.
puppy child how is it we can turn everything you and i can turn every single conversation into food it really is All right, well, we're past our break, so let's go ahead and take our break. When we come back, we will take your calls. It is Freeform Friday, so whatever you want to talk about, that's what we're going to talk about. The number to call, 522-0650. Reach out to Amy now, 907-522-0650. That's 907-522-0650. It's Amy DeBosky on NewsRadio 650 KENI.
Welcome back. Current time is 638. We're going to go straight to the phones. And Tim is with us this morning. Good morning, sir. Good morning. How are you doing? I am wonderful. It's Friday, so I'm feeling pretty spicy. Oh, good. Can I start out with a quick joke? Yes, I love it. Okay, Rodney Dangerfield, I know you know who he is. Oh, yes. So, I sat down to have a birds and bees talk with my son. I told him about the birds and the bees, and he told me about mommy and the plumber. Man!
Rodney Dangerfield. I laugh because I have this flashback to the 80s as a child. I don't know what this says. My parents didn't really monitor what I watched. Rodney Dangerfield, Eddie Murphy. But, you know, Bill Cosby was funny and he was pretty clean. But then I also watched people like Andrew Dice Clay. I don't know what that says about me.
Well, we're getting older. Oh, yeah, yeah. What's on your mind this morning? Well, Rob Yant, I went to Must Read this morning, and I read his non-exclamation. And it's basically like he's flipping us the bird. That's how I see it. Maybe somebody else sees it different. That's fine. So, you know, he's worried about taxing with the Hillcorp 9.5%.
or something like that. So in the meantime, they're stealing our dividend. They're pushing hard to get a tax on us. We didn't send Rob Yunt to pick winners and losers who was getting... tax breaks now we sent him to try to be part of the solution not the problem and you know it's amazing you know
You know what I'm afraid of? Look, I like Rob, and I get along with Rob, and I invited him on the show because I wanted people to hear directly from him what his perspective was. And I always try to be fair with guests. I always try to ask them real questions.
You know, but I said, you know, before we ever started that interview, after I had the interview, when you're coming at me with a new tax proposal, I don't care what it is, I'm starting at a no. You have to convince me that, number one, we're spending... people's money well already. And number two, we have the legitimate authority and the reason to take more money out of your pocket. And when you're talking about, and here's what's...
I fear with this particular bill. It is well known Wilikowski has been pushing this and pushing this and pushing this. And when you look at past Wilikowski bills and this bill is very similar. Very similar. And then we also hear rumors that Kathy Giesel wants to basically open up tax on all S corporations, not just this one. And so I think it's a slippery slope. But when he basically made the argument on this,
Well, it's not fair to the other tax companies that don't get this break. This is basically a loophole. But then when I asked him the question, well, if we're comparing S-Corps and C-Corps, because that's basically what we're doing, right? A little small S-Corp, individually-owned company, with a huge multinational like Conoco.
On tax level, there's all these write-offs that the bigs can take, that a C-corp can take, that an S-corp can't take. So are you really leveling the playing field, or are you actually putting these small companies at a disadvantage because there's tax benefits they cannot? take that the big companies that are operating up there can take.
And his answer was basically, well, that's a federal issue. And it didn't satisfy me. And I'm telling you right now, if I was in the legislature at this point, I would be a very hard no on that, on any new tax proposal, period. They're just passing the buck. And in the meantime, if this passes, it's just more money so they can get their grubby hands on it. It's just a money grab. Do you honestly think it's going to stop with this S-Corp?
It's not going to stop. Because now, see, we said it. I mean, the ink wasn't even dry on the bill being read across the floor. And now they're talking about income taxes. Now they're talking about taxes, other corporate taxes. And you know that doesn't...
Stop there. Then it's going to be a statewide sales tax. You know, I'm waiting for the rain tax to come because, you know, they have these in Oregon where they tax your non-permeable, you know, surfaces of your property. Are you serious? I'm waiting for those to come. Yes, I am serious. When I became city manager, I effectively killed a pro...
a bill or a, how do I say this, a research project that was going to emulate what was happening in Oregon and places where they were going, they call it a stormwater utility tax. And effectively, It taxes every nonpermeable surface on your property, your driveway, the roof of your house. And so I call it a rain tax, right? So that's what I call it. But trust me, like this was on the road in the assembly.
so mad at me because i was like i mean we saved a million bucks just by stopping that because what would would the end result of that research project be the end result of that research project would be a another pot of money the assembly would see and say oh yeah we need to get that
Yeah. And think about the businesses. You think about Walmart. You think about the Diamond Center. You think about any person, any company that was required to build under previous building standards in Anchorage and had to have so many parking spots. all of those now forced by the government would have to be an area which would be taxed. Because...
You know, it's a parking lot, right? So you think about all these places, and the amount of tax would have been unbelievable on some of these businesses, which they would have passed on to the consumers. So I think you're right, Tim, to be... hesitant about any new tax because i think it's never going to stop there i don't think any amount of money you give the government is never enough
So if they ever figure out a mosquito tax, we're all in trouble, man. You know what I mean? That's it. That's it. Well, you know, I think the only tax that I don't think would yield a lot is if we instituted common sense tax in Juneau, I think we might be in trouble. How do we dig them out, though? They need to be thrown out of office here.
Yeah, they did well. Step number one, we have to get rid of ranked choice voting. Because in a closed Republican primary, do you honestly think Chuck Kopp, who was running saying, I'm going to put Democrats in power, do you think he would have survived a closed Republican primary? No. Neither would Lisa Murkowski. She would not have survived the closed Republican primary. That's the whole reason they have this open type of election.
Democrats don't have to face Republican voters. Yeah. And they can still run with an R behind their name. So I think step one is get rid of ranked choice voting. And then step two is find good candidates to actually run who aren't going to be lazy, who will get off their duff and knock on doors, and you've got to pound the pavement, and you've got to raise the money to get your message out. And so I think.
I think it's one of those things we can't sit back and complain anymore. Next time this petition comes around, we've got to get everybody we know to sign up. Yeah, get rid of mail-in balloting from Anchorage. Yep, and got to clean up those voter rolls, man. Ah, jeez, hit the mask. I know. I'm still optimistic. God bless President Trump and his cabinet, man. Like I say, we need to keep him in prayer because the deep state is just dug in like ticks.
Yes, they are. They are. I called you up about a month and a half ago to talk to you about Lisa committing treason. And I wasn't using that word lightly. It's in black and white print, and that's exactly what the deep state's doing. They're committing treason, not following the law of the land.
Well, you know, I can't wait to see what comes out, because I think once you dig in and you start finding out what actually happened in the 2020 election, and we already know that the CIA to some degree... being very widely alleged that the CIA was involved in some of the potential impeachment or the impeachments of Donald Trump so I think what you're going to see is I think you're going to see violations
of law, I think you are going to see treason where you had people that were trying to overthrow a lawfully elected president from within. I think you're going to see that. I believe it. I believe it to be true. So I won't take up any more time, but thanks. It was a good talk. I enjoyed it. Thank you for calling. Have a great weekend. All right. You too. Bye. All right. Bye-bye. We're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back.
To the boss, Amy Demposki. Call 907-522-0650 and be a part of the show on News Radio 650. KENI. All right. To Tim's point, I went back and I found the Must Read Alaska article written by Michael Tavallario. And in there, they have embedded a screenshot of, it looks like a social media post from Senator Yunt. And I'm just going to read it because I feel like, you know, Tim brought it up and I think, you know, it's important. Everybody understands Senator Young's position.
And we'll discuss. Okay, so this is, I'm just going to read word for word what Rob Young says on his post. Poor Suzanne, I'm afraid if brains were dynamite, she wouldn't have enough to blow a fart.
It's not conservative to have a tax environment that treats one company substantially better than the rest in the same industry. That's called crony capitalism. It's also not conservative to allow 743,000 Alaskan... residents to get shortchanged because of a loophole that was accidentally created nearly 50 years ago. for that loophole is $732 per resident and will be approximately another $179 per resident next year.
It's hard to fix the PFD if we're giving our natural resources away at a large discount. This subject has been discussed in this building for at least four years. Picture attached. It's time to close the damn loophole and stop letting Alaskan residents get ripped off. Nothing more, nothing less. My cell phone is still the same. 907-232-8340. If anyone has questions... Give me a call anytime. So that's Senator Yen.
This is what's bothering me about this. We can't cherry pick whether we're being fair in treating everybody the same when we only talk about one part of the conversation. So when you say this was an accidental loophole, I had a conversation with somebody after I spoke to Rob on the air. A couple people called me and they said, hey, I want to give you some history. I want to talk to you about.
you know, this supposed loophole, you have to remember, S-Corps are people, right? S-Corps are privately owned businesses. Somebody owns that business, it's an S-Corp. So back when we had an income tax, individual income taxes, right, this was intentionally put in place, and there was a, you know, basically this S Corp. situation where this scenario existed in which this tax benefit apparently was there. Because otherwise you would be taxing the same person on the same dollar.
And then when they repealed the income tax, I was told it was intentionally left the same way. Right? Because, again, an S Corp is not a multinational corporation. It is not a C Corp. They do not get the same tax breaks and benefits as... other types of corporations depending on how you organize your company that's going to be the tax regime you're going to be responsible for
So when I'm looking at his argument, the fallacy in the argument is he's leveling the playing field. He's not. What he's doing is he's taking away... uh you know this incentive for these s corps to be able to operate on a field similar you know that makes them competitive with the bigs really because if i go to crudo
Or just say the slope. And I'm a small corporation. And I cannot, for example, write off all my capital development on federal land, but Conoco can. How is that a level playing field? It's not. So that's the part of the argument I think he's missing. I mean, I brought it up to him, but I was dismissed quickly. Well, he covered it with, well, that's a federal issue.
Well, but you've got to take that into consideration just like federal income tax or any of these other things. Exactly. And so when Hillcorp, for example, develops in Cook Inlet, they can't write off all those capital costs. But when Conoco develops on Willow, they can.
So how is that? You see what I'm saying? I mean, by taxing Hillcorp more, you're not making a level playing field. In fact, you're disadvantaging, you know, the littler producers. It reminds me of the equity equality thing is what it reminds me of. And the other thing is he's equating getting this money and somehow it's going to go into your pocket in the PFD. Do any one of us for any, any, do we have any belief?
That taxing Hill Corp over 9% somehow is going to make your PFD bigger? Absolutely not. The legislature already has that money spent. Don't make Kathy Gees so happy, though. They already have that money spent. So again, see this is what we call a false argument. When you start saying this is going to equate and give every single Alaskan all this money, I just don't believe it is because I don't trust politicians. There you have the money spent.
And now, I mean, what are we doing? We're disincentivizing. Again, I said this yesterday. If you want less of something, tax it more. That's all I have to say. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to be right back. The opinions expressed on this show are those of the host and not of iHeartMedia or its employees. Thank you for listening to NewsRadio Tip 50's KENI. Welcome back to live, local, and insightful Morning Drive Radio on News Radio 650 KENI. Welcome back.
hour two of the Amy Dabowski show broadcasting live and local every weekday morning. From 6 to 8 a.m., I'm in Palmer, Daryl's in Anchorage. Between the two of us, I feel like we got a good swath of people covered. We appreciate everybody that listens. During the show, it's always fun because I get... I get...
She gets all the calls. Yeah, sorry. I get all the calls. I get calls from friends in Sitka, Fairbanks, Juneau, all points in between. And we're having a little technical issues with Senator Myers. He texted. And he's having connectivity issues where he's at in Juneau. So I'm not sure that he'll be able to call in today simply because he's having tech issues. But if he does call in, we will give him room to...
Room to pontificate on whatever topic he wants. Our goal today was to talk about, we were going to talk about what's going on in Juneau and discussions on the budget. So if he is able to call, then I will certainly put him on the air. But in the meantime, you know, there's a showdown that's happening right now. And like I said, I try to be fair to both sides. Even if I don't agree with somebody, typically if I don't agree with somebody, I give them more time.
because I'm trying to understand where they're coming from. And is there a path for us to have a meeting of the minds? Or as I listen to your argument, is there a way for me to dissect it and beat you?
to be honest i mean i try i try to really understand where people are coming from and sometimes if you have a good argument like i'm waiting for you to convince me if you can't convince me then i'm going to dig into my position i think that's normal human nature um but i think i'm i always leave myself open to be wrong like it could happen i'm waiting for it to happen i wasn't i wasn't wrong on the epstein stuff uh daryl and i had this conversation off air and he says to me i love it when he
starts my Friday with Amy you're right I love it it happens you know not every week but There sure happens a lot. Yeah, every now and then. Even a blind scroll can find a nut. All right, let's go to the phones. Representative Kevin McCabe is joining us. Good morning, sir. Good morning, Amy. How are you? I am fantastic. How is Juno?
Oh, there's some serious phone issues down in Juneau. I don't know. There was phone issues yesterday with all the legislators' phones were apparently ringing through to the governor's office. I don't know. Oh, no. Yeah, that's what I said. Senator Myers told me he had tech issues. He was able to get a tech sale, but he's having tech issues. So we'll see if he gets on. Well, until we're waiting to see if that happens, I would love to know.
your perspective of this legislative session the conversations you're kind of hearing and where you think we might be going yeah well so let's rip the band-aid right off and i'm not in favor of the Senator Young's bill, Hillcorp, I fought against it for four years. I don't think it's fair. We invited Hillcorp up here when we were in dire situation and we said, and we knew he was an LLC, you know, ask Corbin.
We invited them up here and held the brand and said, come on up here and help us fix our cooked inlet gas. And now we're saying, well, we've kind of spent too much money now, you know, putting together our big, huge government. We want you to help us out now. We invited you up here. Now you're up on the slope. You bought a jack-up rig that was going to leave Cook Inlet and go to Vietnam, and you did that so that you could continue to explore for gas for us. But we're just going to tax you.
because we need the money for the long trail or any of those other things that we have decided that big government should do. So, yeah, I think it's a huge mistake, and also getting lost in all of the discussion. is the fact that we're sending a huge message to anyone that wants to develop any resource in Alaska, gas line, gold fields, copper fields, antimony fields. We're sending a huge message to them that they can't trust us.
We've been doing that for a decade, whether it be ACEs or any other thing. When we get ourselves in financial difficulty. We look to the oil companies or to our big producers and say, hey, help us out. And I think it's wrong. I really do. I think we need to be better than that. One of my questions that I had asked relating to this bill, because the first thing that came out, You know, we can't help but watch what's happening on a national level. And Trump has highlighted Alaska more than once.
And the governor has been very close to the president, and they've been talking about unleashing Alaska's energy potential. Being able to do that not only makes us safer as a nation, but it brings back economic stability.
clean energy is great for all of us and so the question I asked and you know I I've got to be honest, I didn't really buy the answer, but the question I'm going to ask you is, do you think, as Alaska legislators, when we step forward and we talk about raising taxes on oil and gas now in Alaska, does that...
that go counter to what the president is trying to accomplish yeah i think so you know i think we're trying to incentivize industry to come up here and i think industry is willing and oil companies and producers and and miners and I think they are all willing to pay their fair share, pay for our resources that they know belong to all Alaskans. But when we constantly change the playing field, this is not leveling the playing field. This is changing the playing field.
from what we told Hillcorp we had in place when he first came up here. So we constantly change the playing field. We're sending a huge message that Alaska's not ready to do business yet. We're a young state anyways. And now we're saying, well, you know, we're kind of in our teenage years here statewide, and we're just spending a lot of money. So maybe you could help us out, Dad. And isn't it funny? So here we are.
about raising income taxes and the Trump administration is talking about doing away with income taxes. This is the backwards part of Alaska that I really don't like. We're a decade behind the rest of the country. I always try to be careful, and anybody who listens to the show knows, I always try very hard not to put legislators on a spot where they're talking about other legislators, just talking about the issues. And I appreciate your candor when it comes to this particular bill.
You know, and that goes back to the holistic issue of at what point are we going to be a dependable investment for multinational companies or private investors who come to Alaska? Because, again, if the argument is we're going to raise taxes
is on Hillcorp, over 9%, and then you're going to get a bigger PFD. I don't think any one of us believes we're ever going to actually see that money. I think the government is looking at it like another honeypot where they can just grab money for their own special insurance. in their own spending I mean what I don't I don't see that argument bearing fruit I do not think raising taxes on Hill Corp is going to put more money in my pocket no and just keep in mind that
You know, we're going to immediately put ourselves in the constitutional lawsuit, frankly, because if we raise them on one S-Corp, we need to raise them on all the others. And think of all the other S-Corps there are.
in alaska all the other privately held there's several of them without mentioning names but there's several of them in my district there's several other um producers in cook inlet that would also have to be in that same boat we can't just do it for one company just because we think or we suspect that he's a rich guy that to me that's that's not the point the point is is he came up here
to help us develop our resources and help us develop or redevelop or get the last little bit of Cook Inlet gas out of there. And he's invested some serious money and some serious coin in it. And just like you said earlier, Where's his tax write-off for that, like the big multinationals that were up here earlier, you know, BP, Conoco, all of them. So, yeah, it's really, really frustrating just because.
You know, a few senators think Hillcorp has a lot of money that they can help us out of our fiscal hole that we have done. Some of the people down there talking about taxes right now, they're the ones that have spent the money. They're the ones that have spent $17 billion of our savings in the last decade and a half. And hello. I mean, I was on the fiscal policy working group with Carpenter and Shower and Shelly Hughes and a few others. And, you know, we said.
Sure. We could use more revenue. We could look at a tax. But we also must look at a constitutional spending cap like the one that Senator Coffman has. And we must look at cutting the budget. And we identified, I think, $750 million worth of cuts. We put together the constitutional spending cap, and we put together the PFD thing, where we said we were going to put it in the Constitution that we must pay a PFD.
We had it all kind of wired out, and it wasn't perfect. I didn't love a lot of it, but, you know, we said if we're going to do any of this, we need to do all of it. And here we are just doing one thing. Yeah, and it's digging into somebody's pocket, which, again, you know, this is what I worry about. I worry that we have a president who is going to be president for the next four years, and if we lose this opportunity, we're just...
screwing ourselves over yet again. Here comes this beautiful opportunity served up on a golden platter, and then here comes tax increases, instability, deterrence from the Alaska legislature. That's how I view it. And I don't know if I'm not being fair about it, but I'm trying to get somebody to convince me I'm wrong here. And I just, I'm not seeing that argument bear fruit. Yeah, I don't think you're wrong. And, you know, once again, this is just...
This is the big government versus small government. What do you want? Do you want government to do everything for you? Do you want government to put a long trail in place that has no return on investment?
Or do you want government to provide opportunities for businesses to come up here and develop our resources and to do business in Alaska? You know, if we could develop a coal plant, say, that wants to be privately funded, and I know this is going to set some of your... listeners' teeth on edge, but privately funded coal plant that wants to sell power to MEA and Chugash so that we can have cheap power so that we can further develop industry that will come up here.
If we have the cheap power, I mean, they're shipping aluminum from, you know, bauxite or whatever the ore is to Iceland all the way around the planet just because they have cheap electricity there to, you know, to... refine it. It makes it so much cheaper.
I think it might even be coming from Australia or somewhere. Wow. Well, I've got to tell you, I'm all about drill, baby, drill, dig, baby, dig, mine, baby, mine. I mean, I'm all of the above. Like, bring it on. Cheap energy is good for all of us. It's good for Alaska.
It's good for residents. It's good for our nation. It's going to make us stronger in every way. I'm with you. Well, Representative McCabe, I appreciate your candor in calling in this morning. The one thing I always know when I ask you a question, you're just going to give me a chance. me a straight answer whether I like it or not you are going to give me a straight answer and I've always appreciated that about you thank you for calling in this morning sir
All right, Amy, I hope you catch Rob on one of the phone lines that's working. Yeah, thank you so much. I appreciate it. All right, we're going to take a quick break, and it does look like we have Senator Rob Myers on hold, so we will go to him next. Stay with us. You're listening to live, local, and always insightful Morning Drive Radio with Amy Demboski on NewsRadio 650 KENI. Get on the show now by calling 907-522-0650.
Well, welcome back. Current time, 723 on this Free Forum Friday. I am very excited to welcome back to this show one of my favorite senators, Senator Rob Myers from North Pole area. Good morning, sir. Morning, Amy. How you doing? Oh, I'm fantastic. I've got to tell you, you know, I read the headlines and I laugh because some of you legislators are very straightforward. And, you know, Representative McCabe just called in. He's clearly straightforward. But you're one of the other ones.
I have enjoyed watching you in the Alaska legislature. How do you see this session starting to shape up? Well, you know, it's very interesting, you know, looking just kind of what's happening within the Senate, you know, some certain things are very frustrating. But I also look at, you know, we've got a governor out there that's. that's trying to look at some things long-term and trying to put us in a better place fiscally and economically.
You know, he's made it more well-known within the last year or so that he's willing to use the red pen when necessary on certain policies. And so I think part of the question here is, you know, how much this is... is fire and how much of this is smoke, because we know that the GOV is going to veto quite a few things that the left side of the spectrum wants. And so are we going to sit down here and spin our wheels on some of this stuff?
Or are we going to sit here and actually try to accomplish something? Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Now, I have to, you know, to play on your point a little, and I'm going to sidebar for just a second because I do want to come back to some of these actual policy decisions because I think things like this massive BSA the governor is going to veto, I think a return to...
defined benefits the governor's going to veto because I go back to the same question how do you pay for them but as an aside to your point about smoke and fire right what is actually out there to get headlines and clickbait versus what do they know is going to be accomplished What I see happening in Juneau this year, and maybe I'm wrong, but what I see is people jockeying for sound bites and talking points for the next governor's race.
That is a significant portion of it, yeah, for the next governor's race, for the House and Senate. you know, coming fall next year. But, you know, this is definitely the case. And, you know, of course, keep in mind, we're still in an RCV environment. You know, we got the petition out to try to repeal it again, but we're going to have to deal with RCV. yet again in the 26th race.
Yeah, no doubt. I can't wait until ranked choice voting goes away. All right, so that was just a side, because Amy's conspiracy theories were going, my spidey senses were strong with the political arena, and I kept saying, you know, everybody knows from the get-go. The governor has been talking about everything.
And he's not just, I mean, look, if throwing money were a solution to the education issue, I think we would be the best performing in the country on every level. And we're clearly not, but we're spending almost the most. So I think that, I think. You know, when the governor comes forward and says, look, we need to have policy changes. We actually have to have measurable outcomes. We have to have improvements. I don't think that's unreasonable. No, completely not.
The Association of School Boards and a bunch of other groups are focused on, oh, look at the inflation over the last 10 years. And they're right. But here's the problem is that they're forgetting what happened the previous 10 years. You go back to, let's call it 2005 to 2015-ish. We were increasing education spending faster than inflation and faster than most places in the country.
And what happened? Well, if you go back to the early 2000s, which is when I graduated high school, our performance was roughly middle of the pack nationwide. And by 2015, where were we? We were bottom of the barrel, even though we were not only increasing spending, but increasing it faster than inflation. There's a lot more going on here than just...
how much money are we spending? And we have to focus on outputs, not inputs. And that's a problem across a lot of our government. We don't focus on the outputs. But it just really comes into focus when you start talking about education policy.
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense to me. You know, as I'm thinking about the education spending and the debates that happen around education spending, one of my greatest frustrations is I will hear people on the other side of the aisle say, we flat funded education. for the past 10 years. And I think about, okay,
Whether you're putting money in my checking account or my savings account, whether it's inside or outside the BSA, if we are year after year, almost every year, adding hundreds of millions of dollars to education, to me, that's not flat funding. I think it's a... disingenuous argument meant to deceive. And I think it's, you know, I don't think it's right, first of all, but I don't think it's accurate either. No, that's 100% right, you know.
They focus on that one number, what is the BSA, and they forget all of the other pieces that go into it. They forget the multipliers in the formula along the way. They forget extra state spending outside of that. They forget about local contributions. They forget about what the feds do. And, you know, they make the argument that, well, you know, outside the formula spending isn't sustainable. It's not predictable. I'm like, okay, two things to that. One, yes, you're right.
But that extra outside their formula spending has never gone down. It has always been at least the same as the year prior. The other thing about it, you know what? It's probably not smart to put... less dependable formula into things like salaries, things that you know are going to keep coming back. But there are plenty of things that you can put that into that is smart. For example, deferred maintenance. And we know...
Every school district that is coming down here to Juneau to talk to us is saying deferred maintenance is a huge issue. And I look at them and I say, perfect. All that outside the funding formula. money that you're not sure you're going to get the following year, put that into deferred maintenance. Take care of some of those problems. One-time funding works great for that.
Exactly. One-time funding does not work great for reoccurring costs, and that's your point. I mean, I think this is what's so frustrating to me when I hear the conversation. And the other conversation around education, there's two points that I don't hear. is going to improve outcomes and how they're gonna pay for it I don't hear those two do those two things from the other side of the aisle you know and and that's how I go back to it how are they gonna pay for it
Oh, you are 100% correct. Now, the Senate is at least trying to address that, and kind of quietly around the building, the word has come out that whatever comes out of the House... When it gets to the Senate, it's going to get cut down because the Senate is concerned about, and this is both majority and minority, the Senate is concerned about how we're going to pay for that. And so the...
dollar figure going around is that we're looking at 175 to 200 million tops coming out of the Senate. And that's a BSA. So the 175, that's what they got in one-time funding last year. That's equivalent to a 680 BSA increase. You know, it might go up a little bit. If anything, honestly, we're going to have the spring revenue forecast come out here in another, oh, two, three weeks.
And if anything, the situation might get a little bit worse because oil prices have been sliding the last couple of weeks. And it's not pretty. When we left Juneau at the end of last session back in May, oil was somewhere around $85 a barrel. And when I looked at it yesterday morning, it was a $71. And that's a huge slide in eight months. And with Trump in office, we are expecting that number to continue to go down because he wants to continue to drill more oil.
And a lot of that's going to happen down south, unfortunately, because Alaska projects are large and have long lead times. Whereas, you know, somewhere down like Texas or New Mexico or Oklahoma, North Dakota, they can be a lot more nimble than we can. You know, some of that's regulatory environment. Some of that is, well, they're not dealing with a very short...
seasonal drilling like we do. There's different issues there. If you're going to put more oil in domestic production, that means that the price is going to slide some more. We're going to be in a world of hurt for a few years. Well, and that's why, you know, at the end of the day, I think Alaska has to be an attractive place to invite people to come in, and they know we're a stable environment. We need to take a quick break, but when we come back, we would like to talk about, you know, I got it.
everybody all worked up this week because the Senate majority apparently had a press conference and I played a few audio clips from one of your colleagues who was advocating for basically telling people an income tax coming you got to get used to it I'm paraphrasing wildly but I'd love to know your position or your thoughts on like the holistic financial situation how we incentivize people or how we attract more drilling and oil
gas development and should alaskans really be expecting you know it's inevitable your pfd is going away and we're getting an income tax these are all the kind of questions that everybody's asking after that press conference that came out this week we're talking with senator rob myers We're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back.
Welcome back. Current time is 740. We're speaking with Senator Rob Myers. He represents the North Pole area. So he is from the north. We are very excited to have this conversation. You know, Senator Myers. Every legislative session since about 2015, the PFD has been the back and forth, the thing that's being argued and debated about, because once Governor Walker cut the PFD,
Then it became this political football, it seems like. It gets argued about. And a lot of Alaskans feel like, you know, they're fighting for table scraps when the, you know. The code, the law says we're supposed to go by this formula. And they just don't. And now we're hearing some legislators say that, you know, we should only, the government should get 75% of it. We have another legislator who has come out and said, you know, the free money is over.
Just get used to the fact we're probably going to have an income tax. What should Alaskans think when we start talking about the fiscal situation of Alaska and what they might expect? So let me back up on that just a little bit.
So the permanent fund in general, I think, you know, a lot of people know this, but some people still don't. The permanent fund in general actually brings in more oil to the state right now. Yeah, the permanent fund brings in more money to the state right now than oil does. You know, if you ignore the federal dollars, the vast majority of the money coming into the state is split about 60-40 between the permanent fund and oil, maybe even 65-35 this year.
And while the drop in oil prices has garnered a lot of the headlines, the underperformance of the permanent fund is actually more concerning in the long run, I think. We put the law in place in 2018 that said, okay, we're going to draw 5% off of the fund every year, and that's going to fund both government and dividends. And then we've argued about since then what the split's going to be.
And what we have not realized is that we are not earning enough to meet that 5%. So the Permanent Fund Corporation was up here and briefed both finance committees last week. They said, okay, in order to make that 5%, our target for earnings is 5% plus inflation, because you've got to at least keep it even with inflation, and then if we're going to draw 5% off, there's your 5% as well.
Since COVID, we have not been making that 5% plus inflation. The last three years in particular have looked really bad. In order to make 5% plus inflation, you needed to make a little bit over 9%. um over the last three years what have we made in the last three years three percent so not only yeah so not only is uh have our oil prices started to drop
But our draw off of the permanent fund, according to that 5% marker, is going to start eating away at the fund here. Now, it doesn't do it right away because we do a five-year average. You know, so it's not going to eat it away immediately. But within a couple of years, if that fund performance doesn't turn around, I don't care if you're using the fund for government or dividends or both.
It's going to start to go down, and then we're going to be in a world of hurt because then both of our revenue sources are going to be slowly going away. So this is a problem. You know, it's a huge problem. I mean, I'm actually speechless when you said it only earned 3% last year because... I know a financial guy that manages money for a nonprofit, and their returns last year, well, it depends on which quarter I'm looking at, were between 9% and 13%. Yeah, yeah, it's not...
in good shape. And that's not 3% for last year. That's 3% over the last three years. Oh, wow. Yeah. All right. So that's our earnings issue. So now, you know, and here's the conversation. As we start to have this conversation, now we're being conditioned. You know, it started with we're going to take part of your PFD. Then it's going to be worth 25%.
It's 50%. Now it's 75%. Now we're being told, hey, you know, the free money, I'm saying that with air quotes, is gone, and now we're going to have an income tax just get used to it. I mean. What were your thoughts when you heard that? Well, I've been telling people something similar for a couple of years now, not necessarily the income tax part of it, but some kind of tax. Because, you know, when we came down here two years ago and we were in the super minority,
You know, we knew what was going to happen is the Senate, at least, was going to be mostly full of a bunch of people that wanted to spend more money. And it was just a question of how fast and how that dynamic played out. And, you know, we grew some the last couple of years, not as much as some people wanted, you know, but we did grow some. And, you know, now we've kind of fallen off of that cliff.
with the oil prices dropping dramatically. And we're sitting in a place where now we've actually, this last cycle, elected more people that want to spend more money. and in a time of declining revenue. So what I've been telling people for two years now is the dividend is gone by about 2028 because that was already the trend that we're on. And if some of this extra spending...
that folks in the two coalitions want passes, then that's going to be just even sooner. But is that going to slow the appetite? I seriously doubt that, because that has been our mantra for 50-odd years here, is how do we continue to grow government in so many ways? There's been some speed bumps along the way, but that's been the trend.
And, you know, we're talking about how do we grow government in a time of declining revenue from almost every source, whether that's federal money, whether that's the permanent fund, whether that's oil. And so a tax of some kind at the rate that we're going is inevitable. Now, is that going to be income tax, sales tax, oil tax?
I have no idea. That is going to depend on the makeup of the legislature and the governor at the time that that happens. And, you know, that's still a few years off. It's within sight, but it's still a few years off. So, you know, who knows exactly who's in office at that point.
Yeah, and for those that don't know you, I just want to be very clear. That's not what you're advocating for. No, absolutely not. So if the world, according to Senator Myers, if you could fix it, if you could have the fiscal situation, You laid out the plan. How would you fix it, and what would you like to see come out of this?
Well, I heard you with Kevin talking about the Fiscal Plan Working Group a little bit, and what came out of the Fiscal Plan Working Group is largely what needs to happen. We have to have a constitutional... settlement of the PFD because we already know from what the Supreme Court said, if it's not the Constitution, it's not going to count. We have to have a constitutional spending cap that's actually meaningful, that's actually going to keep spending down.
And once we settle those two, then we can have a conversation around here about what do we want to spend? How much are we willing to pay for it in some form or another? And so you're right. I'm not advocating that we go down this path of more spending and more taxes and everything. I'm just telling everybody what the trend is right now. And that's the old saying, right? If you want to solve the problem, first step is you have to admit the problem, right?
That's right. You've got to be open and honest about the situation that we're in if we're going to start talking about actual solutions. I was talking to a friend last night. and he was asking me, okay, what the heck's going on with the PFD? I hear they're trying to take more of it. And I said, no, here's what's going on, is they're trying to codify what they've actually done for the last two years. And the question is,
at this point is not, are we going to go to a 75-25? We're already there. The question is, is it going to go lower? And is it going to go away? And I told them, I said, look, here's the situation we're in right now. If you want the PFD to go back to the statutory amount this year, one of two things, or kind of a combination of those two things, has to happen. One, we have to cut somewhere close to a third of our state government.
That's not going to happen in one year. We saw what happened when Dunleavy tried to make, what, 6% or 8% cuts back in 2019. Oh, they lost their minds. They lost their minds. The sky was falling, okay? We're not going to cut 30% of our government. If we couldn't cut 8% or 6%, whatever it was, we're definitely not cutting 30% in one year. Or the alternative is we're going to pick up $1.5 billion in taxes right away.
That's not going to happen either. There's not the appetite for that. I don't think Alaskans want that right away. I think we saw some of that in this last election as well. So something's going to give, and unfortunately, the easiest thing to give is the dividend. And in my mind, while it's the easiest thing to do, it's also the worst possible thing to do because the dividend, because it is money that is already in the hands of the state before it comes out to the residents, it doesn't...
provide any sort of a break on spending. Most other types of revenue to a government, it provides some sort of a break because the government has to look at people and say, hey, we're spending this money And people look at them and go, okay, well, you better spend it wisely or you're spending too much of my money or something like that. Because the permanent fund and the dividend doesn't provide that same kind of break psychologically. It just increases our spending faster.
Well, you know, Senator Myers, I know there are so many moving pieces in this discussion, and we will have lots more of these discussions before the end of session, I'm sure. We appreciate your time this morning. Thank you so much for calling in this morning. Appreciate it.
Absolutely, Amy. Sorry I was late. Apparently we're having trouble with our phone systems down here. Yeah, your Internet, the legislative Internet's down, too, because I was just trying to look at your website. All right, well, I've got to take a quick break. Thank you so much for calling in. We're going to be right back. Stay with us. Welcome back to live, local, and insightful Morning Drive Radio on News Radio 650 KENI.
You know, my biggest takeaway from that conversation with Rep McCabe and with Senator Myers is that, you know, there's just not enough people to be able to tax the level of spending in Alaska that they want to tax to. So we can talk about revenue. all day long. But until they get their spending under control, we're going to have this problem over and over and over again. I mean, it's crazy. All right. We're going to the phones. I've missed him greatly while he has been vacationing for.
around on a big cruise ship. Welcome to the show, Eric. I'm back. I love it. I love it. Well, we have about 45 seconds. You get to close this out. Gotcha. I've got some short ones for you. How do you make an octopus laugh? I don't know. Something about tentacles. I don't know what. You got it. Love it. What did the fish say when he bumped into a concrete wall? I don't know what. Damn.
Hey, last one. Okay, go for it. Why can't Elsa from the movie Frozen have a balloon? Why? Because she'll let it go, let it go. I can't beat that, Eric, on that note. Thank you for calling. That does it for Daryl and I. We will be back with you on Monday morning at 6 a.m. Until then, stay safe. God bless.