Monday 2/24/25 | More School Funding Madness, Headlines

Welcome to the party pal. The Michael Duke Show. The greed and the entitlement is astounding to me. What more could you want from a low-budget radio program? This is a dumpster fire. That was just BS. It is time to get a new perspective. We know just what you need and we've got just the cure. Open wide and prepare for a steaming hot cup of freedom. I just don't. Fathom it.

The Michael Dukes Show, streaming live across the world. Live around the world on the Internet at MichaelDukesShow.com and across the state of Alaska on this, your favorite radio station and or FM translator. Hello, my friend. Welcome back to the program. It is the Monday edition of the Michael Duke show, and we are ready to rock and roll. It is. Oh, man, it is going to be a wild ride today. I can tell the news cycle is just heating up.

There's so many different things going on, and I can't wait to discuss them with you today. I was working on some guests, and, well, nothing came of it. Nothing came of it today, so it's you and me, but that's good. because, wow, Friday was busy. There was a lot of stuff going on in the legislative cycle, including... More movement and discussion on House Bill 69, which is the new funding bill, that $500, $600, $700 million funding bill.

that, surprisingly, the news media is kind of underselling as far as the ultimate cost. I see they keep saying it's a $500 million bill over three years. But they're not they're really soft selling the long term aspects of it, which include that which include that cost escalator, that the pegging. the funding mechanism to inflation, which is going to create some serious issues in the long run.

In fact, that's going to be one of the killers on this is the fact that you're going to see the cost of schooling and school funding for that base student allocation. go up, you know, somewhere between 50, 55, close to $60 million a year over the first handful of years. And then it just goes north from there.

because it's a percentage of the overall cost. And so it's going to ratchet up every year from there on in, which means, you know, basically at that rate in 10 years, it'll be another half a billion dollars on top of it. It's going to be big. And yet it's getting soft sold to the to the public. The news media is not really digging into the numbers, which is a little disappointing, quite honestly.

that they haven't kind of broken it down for you and taken a look at it. It's about $370 million, if I remember correctly, in the first year. And then it's another hundred million and change over the next two years. And then beyond that, it's close to 700 million by the time you get done with year three. And then it just goes up to another 50, 60 million a year. So it's a difficult thing.

Now, Frank asked a pertinent question in the chat room this morning, and I didn't want to get into all this here real quick. Let me just ask his question. He says, how do you bind one legislature over to another? Which is a very valid and pertinent question, and we'll get back to that, Frank, here in just a second, okay? I'll come back to that here in a second, and we will answer you. Let me mark this question here for that discussion.

What else do we got going on? Well, some big news on the national front as far as the nominations go. for different processes and everything else. Kash Patel is now the director of the FBI. That's some good news for those of us who've been watching that for a while. We got some news up out of Fairbanks. things that are happening there. We've got a whole discussion, and I guarantee you this is going to take the lion's share of our two discussion.

Emily Goody Koontz over at the ADN has got an article out talking about this $111 million deficit from the Anchorage School Board. And there are some things in this article that will make you go because she she talks about some things and she includes some things in the article, which. I find kind of surprising because they're included and then they're just, it's like a throwaway sentence and then they don't, and then they don't come back to it, which is.

surprising. But we're going to talk about this. The headline reads, with $111 million deficit, Anchorage school board set to vote on, quote, devastating, unquote. And, of course, all we're seeing in the newspapers and all we're seeing in the in the. The television, you know, news reporting and everything else.

All we're seeing is these rooms full of parents with children testifying about, don't take away my schools and don't, you know, how could you? And the sports programs and everything, which tells me, one, well, this is work. And two, that most of these folks are not thinking about what the costs of any of these things are. And to me, that's the bigger problem. You've got grown adults who are looking at this and saying $1.2 billion in school funding for 120,000 kids is not enough.

Okay, so what is the magic number? And oh, by the way, with that big number that they have there, we're still down in the bottom. 51 out of 53, you know, 51 out of 53, even with 1.2 billion one more time. So it's going to be. It's going to be interesting. And again, this is all part and parcel of the brain, the brainiacs that have been, you know, running around.

in the legislature telling us, don't worry, they've got this all. Remember last year? Remember when we talked about that there is a crisis and that we need a fiscal plan? Remember that? And, you know, Ben Carpenter was talking about, well, we probably should, you know, come up with a long term fiscal plan. And Gary Stevens said the 2575 PFD is our fiscal plan. And, of course, now that.

That's totally blown out of the water. Their fiscal plan lasted all of a year. That was their fiscal plan. One year. Oh, that is our fiscal plan. Yeah, how's that working out for you? All that long-term planning you did on that 75-25, 25-75. How's that working out for you? Anyway, we're going to we're going to dissect this article, because, as I've said many times, as goes Anchorage, so goes the rest of the state in usually.

In the long run, Anchorage is kind of like a bellwether of things that are going on. And so and we're seeing this repeated out in some of the other districts as well. Not all. But some of the other districts are playing out this same game as well. And it's just astonishing to watch, especially when we know we, you know, this is not like. This whole situation with the school funding and the issues that we're hearing from the various school boards and school districts is not unexpected. Right.

They know what's going on with they know how they have an idea of what funding is going to look like. And instead of. betting and waiting on the best case or the worst case scenario or planning for contingencies they're always like they're always hoping for the best and you know they're just It's like they're planning for the best and hoping for the best at the same time. And that's just not a way. That's just not the way to run a railroad. It's amazing. Amazing.

All right. So what other stories? We are going to talk a little bit about Dan Bongino. We will talk about the vote that took place on last week. with the rolling of the House bill out of the Education Committee and some of the curious actions there. What was the other thing that I was going to talk about?

I mean, I guess this standoff, we don't really know anything about this standoff that happened in Anchorage. But Anchorage, what's going on with Anchorage? I guess this is where I'll finalize this segment. What's going on with that? Terry and I were talking about this on Saturday because we're watching the headlines that are coming out of Anchorage. And.

I don't know if it's me and I'm just noticing it more. I don't know if it's the news cycle. Maybe these things have been going crazy for quite a while, but. It seems like Anchorage is really, there's some craziness happening down there. Every week, it's a new standoff. It's a new shooting. It's a new... I mean, over this, this was it? Was it yesterday? Day before? I guess it was maybe it was Friday. I guess it was Friday and Friday afternoon, Friday morning.

There was a standoff at one of the nicer hotels in Midtown where police ended up. I mean, some suspect barricaded himself in the hotel room with a bunch of. With a bunch of hostages and eventually they had to breach the room and they they killed the guy and they got the kids out. And I mean, I but it just seems like every week there's something new going on down. You know, you think it was like.

Some big city outside, not just a little podunk town of 250,000 people. I don't know what's going on, quite honestly, but it's kind of crazy. that we're seeing a lot of this stuff come out of the Anchorage area, from the officer-involved shootings with just standard people, and then, of course, the criminals as well.

They're getting, apparently, they're getting a lot of use out of their SWAT team here lately. But I don't, and I just don't know why. I don't know. I wish I had an answer to that, but it just seems like... I don't remember it being this way 10 years ago when I moved down from Fairbanks. It really started paying attention to what was going on in Anchorage because I was doing morning radio in Anchorage. And it was not...

We were not seeing the incidence of this that we are today. And like I said, I don't know if it's just a difference in reporting or if it's something that I'm just noticing or if it's Anchorage degenerating. In a way that. Or is it the fluoride in the water? It's turning the frogs. I don't know. I don't know what it is. Whatever it is. I'm not a fan. I'm not a fan of what's going on down there.

All right. We're coming up on the break. We got more coming up. We're going to continue with some of the we're going to continue with some of the other stories and we will be back here in just a moment. The Michael Duke show. Common sense, liberty-based, free-thinking radio will return. Don't forget to come check us out on Facebook, facebook.com slash MichaelDukeShow.

Facebook.com slash MichaelDukeShow if you want to come out and join us. We'll be back. All right, we'll return in just a moment. Don't go anywhere. Good morning. It's Monday. If you missed the show, you can listen to it on your time with Duke's On Demand. Oh, and it's free. Like America used to be. Streaming live every weekday morning on Facebook Live and MichaelDukesShow.com. This thing on? Just check it. Greg got his Marlin on Friday.

Lesko says we can't just keep talking about education funding. Biden's high gas prices and bull market should have left America or should have left Alaska in a good position. I mean, should have. But again. Should have left Alaska in a good position. But the problem is, is that it didn't. And the problem is, is that even if it did and the and Alaska got more revenue. The biggest problem is, of course, that we spend it all. And we continue to spend it all. That's the problem.

Okay. Let me see. He also said legislature needs to be held accountable for failing to make money on high... on oil at high prices and failure to make money with our permanent fund in a bull market two separate things but i don't disagree with either one of you but again if they found all that money the first thing that they would do is they would immediately um they would immediately spend it all that's that's the that's the problem they would immediately spend every bit of it and then some

That's what we're looking at right now. Okay. I'm talking and trying to manipulate other things at the same time. All right. We're close. What does this look like? Okay. So we're going to join Fairbanks. Fairbanks is going to join us just a minute late here. Or not a minute, but a few seconds late. All right. So we're going to keep things going. What do we got? And we are 10 seconds out. Okay. Sorry, I'm trying to juggle three things here at once.

Let's get to it. The Michael Luke Show, Common Sense Radio. We are ready to rock and roll here. Let's get into some of these news stories from around the state. Got a good stuff going on here. Let's get going on. Welcome back to the Michael Duke show, by the way, in case I didn't say that. Let's do this thing. So we'll start up in Fairbanks. This was interesting. It is the story coming out of Fairbanks that the state has now dropped its charges against.

local North Pole parent, Keith Fonz. Now we had Keith on the program to talk a little bit about this right after it happened. And for those of you who don't recall, Keith is a bit of a pot stirrer. He's an activist, right? He's very vocal about what he believes, which I fully support. Absolutely fully support. But you will recall that back in September, North Pole High School got locked down. Parents showed up to pull their kids out.

And they had there. Apparently there was some kind of threat there, but they were. But the parents weren't told what the nature of the lockdown was. They weren't told exactly what the threat was, what was going on. And instead, they had all the students grouped up in North Pole High School has got like a big atrium area in the entryway. And apparently they were all grouped up right there. Which.

It raises some questions about the tactical mentality of the people who are directing the traffic inside the building there that that, you know. You don't want to put all your eggs in one bat, right? I mean, so the parents could be outside looking inside, seeing their kids. They weren't being told what the nature of the emergency was or what the lockdown was or anything else.

And Keith Fonz was like, OK. So they were all waiting outside. Students were being held for nearly 20 minutes after the bell had rung at the end of the school day. And they weren't telling anybody anything. Now, interestingly enough, it was later discovered or disclosed, I guess I should say, that there was an incident on one of the athletic fields.

where a student allegedly was threatening a teacher that wasn't in the school and they wouldn't let, but they're holding the kids. This is bureaucracy is what this is, right? You got parents standing on the other side of the glass saying, give me my kid. I'll get out of here. And they were like, no, no, no. We can't tell you exactly what's going on. Anyway, Fonz wasn't having it.

He's like, wait a second. So he went inside. He had his camera, his phone camera. Everybody's got a camera today. And he went inside with his camera rolling to find out why the students were being herded into the entry, the atrium there. and why they were not being released to their parents, who were right there. Right? Right outside the door.

And he said, I mean, as far as he was concerned, they're holding my daughter. He said, holding my daughter hostage, which I mean, that's hyperbolic. But, you know, OK, I can I can see it. I could see it. So. And the video was on Facebook. He posted the video, the actual video.

of what hangs and things did get a little testy there was some words no no nothing threatening nothing just there was some bad language there was some hey i want my kid what are you doing blah blah blah blah blah Well, later that same day, after everything had, you know, the kids had been picked up and everything else, one of the people who worked for the school district, Alicia Johnson. filed charges against Keith Fonz saying she felt unsafe. It was an assault charge. Which was like, what?

So he posted bail and hired an attorney and got on it post haste. And they demanded the body camera footage from the police officers. Because the video that he posted was the video of him walking into the school talking to the teacher. And it was confrontational, but it wasn't threatening. And so then they came back and they arrested him later on at home. The police showed up at his home and arrested him. And so he demanded the body camera footage from the thing. The police refused to give it.

He wouldn't accept a plea deal. They were trying to plea it out. He was going to go to trial on this. The employee who brought the charges has since left the school employees. So they're not even so the person is not even. The charge was dropped to a misdemeanor. Assault for causing fear of injury. This whole thing was part and parcel because Fonz was the guy that did the whole butt gate thing, right?

He was part of that whole butt gate thing with Bobby Burgess from the school board in Anchorage. He was one of the main guys that was he and Bobby Burgess's wife. Meredith, what's her name? I've forgotten all of a sudden. Anyway, they were battling it out on Facebook. And this just feels so retaliatory that here was an opportunity, because he got mouthy.

in public, this is an opportunity to give him back some of his own. This is what it feels like. Anyway, this whole saga has been going on, and... Now the state of Alaska has dropped the case against Fonz altogether. First, they reduced it down from the original assault claim down to a misdemeanor. And now they've dropped the misdemeanor. And here we go. So he's walking free. I mean, not walking free. It was... It was definitely not walking free because, ow, he was walking free today.

Because it wasn't free because he had to pay for his attorney. So it wasn't necessarily free, but it was it was definitely there. So anyway, we're going to we're going to wish him a very, very happy Freedom Day. I guess. Is that what it's all about? Freedom day. Happy freedom day to Keith as he gets as he gets ready to go on there. All right. So that was the story out of the interior.

that we were catching. I was like, wow, I can't believe that. I totally forgot about it, quite honestly. I mean, Keith didn't, obviously, because he was living it, but I totally forgot about it. The other story that I wanted to and we talked about the whole SWAT thing in Anchorage, which, again, I don't. Somebody did ask in the chat room, I said, all you have to do is look at the leadership of what's going on in Anchorage. And maybe that's it.

Maybe as we get more liberal in our leadership and we get more kumbaya and it's really not the perpetrator's fault. The perpetrators are just victims of the system or capitalism or something else. Maybe that's part of the problem. I don't know. But it just it sure seems like that that the news is getting.

kind of crappier by the day for all the different things that are going on out there. But I do want to touch on this because I got to be honest with you. I'm tired of looking at her face. Lisa Murkowski. She's she she is just going on and on about, you know, she doesn't seem to understand. Well, maybe she does. She doesn't seem to understand that the president was elected by an overwhelming margin.

It is astonishing that she continues to fight against every aspect of what's going on, including the latest. from the Department of Governmental Efficiency, DOGE, right? And she goes on to talk about how Trump and Elon Musk are not treating workers with... Respect. Now, I have questions about have you actually worked in the public sector in the past? I don't think I don't know if she's ever actually worked in the public in the private sector.

I think she's probably been involved in government most of her life because what happened was federal workers got a memo. They got a memo that said, essentially, what did you do last week? They sent emails to 2.3 million U.S. federal government employees with the headline, with the subject matter of. What did you do last week? Please reply to this email with approximately five bullet points of what you accomplished this week.

And CC, your manager, please do not send any classified information, links or attachments. The deadline is Monday at midnight. Well, 1159 p.m. on Monday. So Monday night. So give us what did you do last week? They said this was basically just to say, name us, give us five things you did last week in your office. Now, part of this apparently was to weed out people who don't.

what they call them, ghost employees, where they don't answer their email, they're really not even paying attention. Although, in all fairness, I'll be honest with you, if I work, and depending on the job, depending on the job, If I work when I was working for somebody else and my weekends were off, I wasn't checking my email on the weekend. OK, depending on the job, depending on what I was doing, because sometimes that's not.

You know, I'm not working. It's the weekend. It's my off time. But I can see the point. Lisa Murkowski goes on. She's fuming. She's so we should treat them with respect. And I'm like. What are you talking about? There have been plenty of times when I've had to justify my existence as an employee to my manager, owner or whatever. In fact, I remember one time they wanted a step-by-step, and this is at a previous employer who shall not be named, but was horrible.

I remember that they wanted a step-by-step, minute-by-minute, blow-by-blow report of what I did the entire day and that week. And it wasn't just me. It was every employee in that regard. They wanted a report that took well over an hour and a half to write, which was a blow by blow of everything that we'd done for that day. Now. Was it irritating? Absolutely. Was it demoralizing? Maybe. But did it also solidify to make sure that what I was doing that I was doing what I needed to do? Absolutely.

Absolutely it did. But I love this whole, this is a quote, our public workforce deserves to be treated with dignity and respect for the unheralded jobs that they perform. Unheralded jobs? Are you out of your mind? Unheralded? They're getting paid. They're doing what they're doing. That's like saying that the guy that makes the widgets down at the factory that turns your iPhone on is unheralded. Maybe, but he's getting paid. What is this?

What is this treating them like there's some different class of people that shouldn't be held to the same standard that we hold everybody else to? What is this whole thing? I mean... It makes no sense. Our unheralded jobs perform the absurd weekend email to justify their existence wasn't the dignity and respect they deserve. What is going on? Again, just like any other business, when times are tough or times are tight or you're trying to figure out how to make things more efficient,

Sometimes people might lose their job or they might be forced into an uncomfortable position where they have to justify and answer for themselves what they do. That's just the way it is. And this whole thing about. Oh, you've got to treat people in this manner. You've got to do, you know, she thought that the approach was, quote, absurd and didn't see why federal workers have to, quote unquote, justify their existence.

Because that's what happens sometimes when you work with employees and employment. You've got to justify your that. That's just how it works. Sometimes we all have to justify our existence to, you know, our spouse, our employer, our, you know, it is just so crazy that they are treating. Federal employees as if they are a different, not they being the people who are lamenting about this, as if they are a different class of citizen. Well, they should be treated with respect and...

dignity because of the unheralded jobs they perform. Chick, please, are you kidding me? Many of the people who are performing these unheralded jobs get paid fairly well with Pretty solid retirements and almost unkillable jobs. I mean, like they can't they can't. Well, look what happened now. They're trying to fire some of these people. And what's going on right now? This is what's happening right now.

So, I mean, this is, you know, it's crazy. It's crazy. But here she is. I'm just, I'm tired of looking at her face. Because every time she speaks, I just go, oh, I just get so agitated. But this is, you know, she's going over the same thing again and again. Oh, we just need to, we need to treat them with respect and dignity and. It's not undignified to ask an employee to justify their performance. There are self-performance reviews that happen all the time, right?

Is if you ask an employee to do a self-performance review, is that if you ask them to do a sales call report where they have to report on what they were doing throughout the day or a weekly call report, is that. You know, if they have to, you know, again, are they so out of touch with the rest of the world that doing something like this causes them such heartburn?

Are they really that out of touch that they just don't understand that those are performance metrics that most employees have to follow at some point? That they have to do? You know, a weekly report or a checklist or something else to make sure that they got stuff done or to justify what's going on, especially in times of crisis. Is that just demeaning? that you would be asked to justify your performing? Give me a break. Give me a freaking break.

And of course, the whole question about whether or not people actually were in the system, the must read article said. The goal is to determine of this email is to determine if federal workers are even checking their emails in an effort to determine how many ghost employees may be on the payroll. Failure to respond to the memo may be justification for presuming the employee is resigning, said Musk.

Again, it's a weekend, and if I only work Monday through Friday, but you have until 11 p.m. tonight to get it filled out. I would check my email Monday morning and I'd see it and I'd do it. There you go. But her whole thing about, oh, it's just, oh, you've got to treat them with dignity and respect. I don't see how that's a problem. I really, I really don't. I just don't see how that's a problem. All right, we got to go. We're going to continue here in just a moment. The Michael Duke show.

Common Sense, Liberty-based, free-thinking radio. We continue in just a moment. Don't go anywhere. Back with more right after this. Streaming live every weekday morning on Facebook Live and MichaelDukesShow.com. Okay. All right. I think we're back. I think we're good. Okay. Let me go back up here. Barbara says U.S. Department of Ed employees busted by using Signal app to hide things from Doge.

Herd mentality. Gather everyone into a giant clump and let the bad guys run out the bullets quickly? Geez. Yeah, I mean, that's the thing. The atrium, this is going back to the whole thing with Keith Fonz and North Pole. The atrium is akin to shooting fish in a barrel. That was my question. Why do you group all the kids up into one easily targeted package? Yeah, it's because the children's belong to the state. Yeah, Keith doesn't even live in the, doesn't even live in the city of North Pole.

What Frank says, body cams are used to only protect an officer, not to be used against officers. Although, I mean, I know that there's some sarcasm there, Frank, but again. That's part of the problem is when you call for a public records request or you ask for body cam footage to be released and they get reticent, you know something's going on. Jeannie says, because schools don't have the authority to retain your children without cause. Study Columbine. Yeah. Yeah, no, exactly. Recall Murkowski.

Cole North says, but they think that they do, that they don't have the right to retain your children. That was in response to Jeannie saying they don't have the right to retain your children. Cole says, oh, but they think they do and try to assert your rights. And look, dad gets arrested. So typical of the school district A guys who think that they have all the power, but then turn around and play victim every time they abuse their power.

Yeah. Chris says over on YouTube, Chris says Lisa's fighting against anything Trump is. It's what motivates her donor base. He's not wrong. He's not wrong. Bill says, did they respect the federal workers that were fired for not taking the shot? Good question. You know, Greg says, I wake up every day and have to justify myself. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. Polly says, we want details on what Lisa did last week too. She should send an email. Give us five bullet points, Lisa. You know, just give us five, just give us five bullet points. Oh, man. Let's see. Ben Carpenter said, I was on the call. Lisa wasn't worried about why Walmart diapers aisle has anti-theft cameras.

but was concerned about high paying federal jobs. Trillion dollar deficit spending is paying for entitled employees. Our grandchildren are paying their salaries. I mean, that's exactly it. Why are we worried? I mean, it's like the little people. Again, it's like the federal workers are in. And again, if you're a federal worker, I'm not trying to besmirch you, but it's like people who like Lisa.

And all these other ones, they're talking about you like you are a different class of critter, like you were a different species. You're a different socioeconomic class. Oh, we shouldn't. They're the unsung heroes of the Republic. And we shouldn't give that. We shouldn't know.

Justin said, good morning, Michael. I had to write a daily log of what I did that day, five days a week. So they know that I was working and not goofing off. I didn't have a problem with it. Yeah, we've all done it. Did you find it demeaning? Maybe after a while it was. because you're like, guys, you know that I'm doing it and you could see my performance and you could see, you know. But yeah, there's times when that stuff, you got to knuckle down on that stuff. It happens.

Kevin says, a federal job is not a birthright, an entitlement, a job for life. A federal job is an opportunity to serve fellow Americans and get paid for it. Yeah, kind of where I'm at. corporate reductions in force efforts are a surprise to workers. Her argument is ignorant. Yes. Because they don't treat you with tolerance and provide you with grief counseling and do all this other stuff when they do a riff in the corporate world. You just get noticed that you shouldn't show up the next day.

Maybe you get a severance package if it's, but I mean, you know, treat them with respect. This is life. Hello? This thing on? This is, yeah. All right, here we go. The Michael Duke Show. Common Sense Radio. Let's do it. The Michael Duke Show. Not your daddy. Wait, sorry. Not your daddy? Ooh, not your daddy's talk radio. Whew. I was scared for a second. Thought we were going down. Here's Michael Dukes and the show.

All right. We're continuing on some really interesting comments in the chat room this morning during the break about this whole thing with Lisa. And as much as I hate, I mean, you know, this is national, but it's also state related because it's Lisa Murkowski, right? I mean, this is.

But, I mean, people are like, look, Justin says, good morning, Michael. I had to write a daily log of what I did five days a week so they know that I was working and not goofing off. I didn't have a problem with it. Me too. Me too. Now, after a time of that and maybe a while, maybe a year, I was like, do I really need to keep doing this? You're seeing my numbers. You're seeing what I'm doing.

And eventually you get off those kind of things. You don't have to do those things anymore. But when you do, there's a reason behind it. Ben Carpenter said, I was on the call, the call with Lisa, where she talked about these things. He said Lisa Murkowski wasn't worried about why Walmart's diaper aisle had anti-theft cameras, but was concerned about high paying federal jobs. Trillion dollar deficit spending is paying for entitled employees. That's the that's the truth.

Kevin McCabe goes on to say a federal job is not a birthright, an entitlement, a job for life. A federal job is an opportunity to serve fellow Americans and get paid for it. Again, I don't see this as being... You know, you know, lacking dignity or being being respectful or, you know, whatever. What was the thing to treat with dignity and respect? I mean, come on. Really? This is what or is it because you, Lisa?

Couldn't come up with five things that you have done this last week. I mean, I know that's a little hyperbole. It's a little bit of a different thing, but I mean, come on. She is so spun up about this. Because, let's face it, folks, she's playing to the base, the people who got her elected, which in this case are the big spending Democrats and the Rhino Republicans. That's who keeps getting Lisa Murkowski elected.

is the big spending, the pro-government big spending crowd. And she doesn't want to lose her base. That's why she's pushing on this. That's why she's making all this happen. So it is, you know, it's astonishing. But again, treating federal employees like they are a completely different species or a completely different working class or whatever. Well, they should be treated with respect. Name me one corporate reduction in force.

And this is another point that Ben Carpenter made, you know, name me one corporate reduction in force where they treated everybody with dignity and respect. And they gave them mornings and foot massages and hired, you know, counselors to walk them through the. the fact that they had to lay off 20% of their workforce and that, you know, no, you don't get, it is a surprise. You don't get treated with kid gloves.

you get the band-aid get ripped off, right? I mean, you show up to work and they're like, sorry, give us your key card. And here, take this box and clean out your desk. You know, it's not your fault. It's all good. We're, you know, we're making some changes and we'll see you. Or. If you just didn't get an email on Friday night that said don't come in on Monday because you're done. I mean, it hurts for sure.

But these people are government employees. They're not some nouveau riche nobility that deserves extended kid glove care just because they work for the federal government. Again, this email, and I'm looking right at the email. It literally says, what did you do last week? Subject line.

Please reply to this email with approximately five bullets of what you accomplished last week and CC your manager. Please do not send any classified information links or attachments. Deadline is this Monday at 11.59 p.m. EST. That's the whole email. And by God, if you can't pick up five things that you accomplished or worked on or did towards, five bullet points. If you can't rattle off an email like that in under two minutes, I don't know what's, you're fired. You're fired. I mean.

Five bullets. They're not asking for a detail. I remember the one time I had to fill out a sale. I was telling you about that sales call report where they wanted a minute by minute, blow by blow. Took me an hour and a half to write a report about the day that I just had. And I literally finish it out saying, I now spent the last hour and a half writing this report for you. That was the last time I had to fill out that report, by the way. Because I was like, you're wasting my time.

Because it was a three and a half, four page report on everything minute by minute that I did from the time I got up to the time I put the last period on the end of the report and I sent it in. Sometimes it does get a little pedantic, right? But this is just, give us five things you accomplished this week and CC your manager, have a nice day. That's not respectful, apparently.

The AFGE president, that's the American Federation of Governmental Employees, says, once again, Elon Musk and the Trump administration have shown their utter disdain for federal employees and the critical services they provide to America. Are we all talking out of the same talking points book? Because that sounds a lot like what Murkowski said. Our public workforce deserves to be treated with dignity and respect for the unheralded jobs they perform.

And the other ones, utter disdain for federal employees and the critical services they provide American people. I mean, is it really critical, though? Remember when the government shut down and people were like, it shut down? Remember they had to drag barricades around the Washington Monument so you wouldn't get too close because it was shut down? And you're like, but it's an open plaza. Why would it? Oh, no, we're closed.

But this is this is how they're treating it. Oh, dignity and respect. You're showing disdain. You're showing this is irregular, unexpected and warrants further. I mean. They are just people who work for the government. They are just people who are in a job. Sometimes you have to do job performance reviews, and sometimes they're self-reviews. It's not demeaning.

It may be demoralizing, but that's more on you than anything else. We've all had to do it. Those of us that have worked, you know, in the real world, we've all had to do those kinds of things. And to act like you're being put upon for this simple five-line email. It's ridiculous. Ridiculous. All right, we got to continue here. We got more coming up. The Michael Duke Show. Up next, we're talking about the new deputy director nominee for the FBI. Oh, what? Yeah, that's all coming dead ahead.

The Michael Duke Show, common sense, liberty-based, free-thinking radio. Yeah. Oh. Don says, what was this? What did I miss here? Don says, what about those 10,000 employees fired on O. Biden's last day? still scrolling through yeah and murkowski staff is the highest paid in the senate did you see that who was it it was was it ran paul that had the they had the

Anyway, yeah, she has the highest paid staff in the Senate. And there's one senator, can't remember if it was Rand Paul or somebody else, who basically his employees get paid half of what Murkowski's employees get paid. ninety three thousand just for salary per year plus benefits and yada yada yada um Anthony just said, huh, I just realized that under her ideology, a truck driver is a victim to workplace harassment. All those logs, disrespectful. Oh.

Angie said, when I worked for law firms, I had to tell them what I did every six minutes because they build in six minute increments, right? 10 segments an hour. Yeah. I'm scrolling through here. Ron said I know of one company that changed CEOs he walked onto one floor and asked what they did there and not one person could give him an answer so he fired the whole floor yeah exactly Um...

My old job, said Richie, required us to know what we did after every job we did each day of the week. It's called accountability and also providing your employer what they are asking for, which is what they are paying you for. It should not be a shock. Exactly. If you want to find efficiencies, if you want to make sure that there's a paper trail for what's going on and people know what's happening, there is reporting involved in all of that stuff. All right. Wake up and smell the roses.

What about the non-essential employees? Bottom line says, Richie, if you're doing what you're being paid to do, answering these questions should not be an issue. They're showing another reason why they are being told to kick rocks. Exactly. Again, if you can't come up with five bullet points of what you've accomplished this week, you know, of things that you worked on. I didn't even say things you accomplished. It's just things that you worked on.

Where is it right here? Always accomplished. Five bullets of what you accomplished last week and CC your manager. Okay. Things you accomplished. Again, if you can't fill that out as bullet points in less than, I mean, five minutes? Ten minutes. I'll give you ten minutes. If you can't fill that out, you might be part of the problem. That's... What the what? The what? Something just happened with the rumble feed. Just trying to figure out what's going on. Did I just lose the rumble feed?

Apparently I just lost the rumble feed. So sorry guys on rumble. Sorry guys. Um, but. Again, if you can't figure this out, if you can't fill that out in just a handful of minutes, you are obviously part of the problem. Period. You are obviously part. of the problem. All right. Well, apparently rumbles still up, but it just says that it's not. All right. So we will, um,

We will continue on here. I got more to talk about. Let me just go through here any other comments. Government shutdown equals delayed paychecks. Yeah, it's a paid vacation. It's a paid vacation. Government shutdown is here. Take a couple weeks off. We'll pay you when you get back. I am sure they will blame the high salaries on the distance between Alaska and D.C., says Tawny. The high salaries for Murkowski. Okay, yeah, I'm sure.

One ex-talk radio guy said his Alaska State friend employee was told to play video games for eight hours every day. You know, yeah. If they fire the commie feds, who's going to wave Lisa signs, says Robert. Oh, you wish you had this. Oh, man. Yes, I do have whipped cream on my coffee. You're welcome. All right. Sorry. My wife just made a special delivery to the studio and it was it is delicious. Absolutely delicious.

Catherine says, oh, Catherine, that's vicious. A migrant field worker being deported can answer those questions. Ow. Ow. Pain. You're right. This whole thing is just, it's astonishing to watch. But this is the world we live in, where they treat federal employees as if they're a different class of people that should be treated with kid gloves in the utmost respect just because.

We're not talking about treating them bad. We're just treating them like every other employee out there that has to answer questions about what they're doing in their jobs. All right, we got to go. Put that thing back in its holster. We haven't gone anywhere. I don't understand. Check out themichaeldukesshow.com for information on how to get access to the podcast. Welcome to the party, pal.

show. The greed and the entitlement is astounding to me. What more could you want from a low budget radio program? This is a dumpster fire. That was just BS. It is time to get a new perspective. We know just what you need and we've got just the cure. Open wide and prepare for steaming hot cup of freedom. I just don't. Fathom it.

The Michael Dukes Show, streaming live across the world. And live around the world on the Internet at MichaelDukesShow.com and across the great state of Alaska on this, your favorite radio station and or FM translator. Good morning, my friends. Yes, it is coffee. Because coffee is life. I know I got my flavor saver. I done caught a little coffee in the flavor saver. We dip our beard in coffee. Nice beard. Good morning to the program and to all you folks and all the ships at sea. News flash.

We're here today in hour two to continue to talk about, well, we're going to talk about the education thing. I know some of you are like, do I really have to talk about that? Yes, we still have to talk about the education thing.

Because a lot of stuff happened on Friday. So we're going to get into that here in just a bit. We're going to talk about what's going on in Anchorage, their $111 million deficit. Just keep throwing that number out there, throwing that number out there, throwing that number out there. And they got the whole community all riled up about it. We're going to talk about that. We just finished talking about Lisa Murkowski.

And her kinder, gentler approach to how to deal with employees. Apparently, you have to deal with employees like it's a hostage negotiation crisis. You have to treat them with dignity and respect in all things. Although. I'm trying to figure out how it's disrespectful to ask an employee to do a report, a weekly call, you know, like a call report. I worked in sales, so it's, I work in sales. I am.

It's a call report, right? You do a daily or a weekly call report. What did you do this week? Oh, I called it so-and-so, and I did this, and I wrote this copy, and I did this thing, and I put this proposal together, and I did this. Okay, great. I mean, that's not I didn't feel like my dignity was stained because somebody asked me to do that.

Now, when they wanted a minute by minute soul crushingly detailed, you know, report with a paragraph for every minute of every day that I that was a little but that was that only happened once. That only happened once. I mean, what the what the what? But Lisa Murkowski going around just fuming. that we're not treating the public workforce with the dignity and respect they deserve. That's what she said. Deserve for the unheralded jobs they perform. How is it unheralded?

Are you trumpeting the work that the guy at McDonald's did for you by giving you that Big Mac through the door? Are you heralding the work that the guy at the gas station did when he checked your oil or changed your tire? What is it? Some of this language is just so absurd. Oh, the unheralded jobs that they perform. I just...

And then they quoted the guy from the Alaska or the American Federation of Government Employees, you know, the administration showing their utter disdain for federal employees and the critical services they provide to the American people. What critical services are we talking about specifically? Because I don't see a bunch of air traffic controllers or border police getting these emails. Maybe they are.

And I don't remember the last time that there was a government shutdown. Remember what the answer, you know, remember what happened then? Nobody noticed. Nobody noticed that the government was shutting down. Except for the people who were in Washington, D.C. trying to go see the Washington Monument because the Park Service grabbed 15 miles of barricades and put them up around the Washington Monument because, well, we're closed. It's a public plaza. It's an open air.

Come on. Really? Oh, it's the critical services. The critical services and the unheralded jobs that these people... Why are we treating federal employees like they're a better class of citizens than the average Joe? So, and Anthony in the chat room made a perfect example. Anthony made the comment. I want to make sure I don't misquote him here because it was perfectly, he said,

I just realized that under her ideology, Murkowski's, a truck driver is a victim to workplace harassment. All those logs? Disrespect. I mean, because truck drivers have to fill out a tremendous amount of logs and paperwork. Where have you been? What did you do? How did you load it? What time did you sleep? What time did you do? But that's for safety. But it's disrespectful.

How many of you have had to fill out reports on your jobs on a daily or a weekly basis? Somebody made a comment that when I worked for a law firm, I had to report what I was doing every six minutes. Billable hours. unheralded all right i'm sorry i i'm still just going off about this because to me i can't believe she's stuck on this of all things here's the danger here's what the real story is you want the real story

This is one man's humble opinion of what the real story is. The real story is that Lisa Murkowski is afraid of federal employees getting eliminated in the state of Alaska. One, because it will affect the economy. There's no two ways about it, and maybe she cares about that. Maybe. But two... She would lose part of her electorate base. And she's worried about getting reelected. That that cadre of big spending people who are going to vote where their pocketbook is.

Because they're going to vote for the federal spending the more money because that's how their job gets. She's afraid of losing a constituency. She's playing to the base hard right now. She's playing to the base hard. And she's going to keep going. Although, again, you know. Her time might be. I mean, I've said this before, but, you know, maybe her time is numbered. Maybe this will be the time. This will be the go around where she doesn't get reelected.

Although I'm not going to hold my breath. I'm not going to hold my breath on this. We'll have to see. All right. So where were we? We were talking about, oh, I was talking about the new deputy director of the FBI. So Kash Patel, who who was nominated. And finally, his nomination was confirmed. So he was confirmed last week. He has now named his deputy director of the FBI.

And that guy is none other than Dan Bongino. Which really sucks for me because, just as a side note, for those of you who don't live down on the peninsula, He was one of the new shows that I put on my radio station because I loved him. I loved his wit. I loved his delivery, his storytelling, and everything else. I just started playing him last month. Like, well, yeah, about a month ago. Three weeks, three or four weeks ago. And I've been enjoying the heck out of his show. He's an amazing...

He does good. I love what he does. I love his enthusiasm. He was a New York police officer. Then he became a Secret Service agent. And then he ran for Congress three times, never winning, but then he created his own podcast. He's got a show on Rumble, the owner of the Bongino Report. He's got his national radio show on Westwood One. You know, very successful, highly successful. And now he has been accepted or been not been been nominated as the as the deputy director of the FBI.

What am I going to do? I have no idea. It'll be good for the country. Bad for me because now I got to find somebody to fill that hole. But that's fine. That's fine. It is what it is. Good for the country. I'm all about it. Dan Bongino. Uh, and of course they're going to pick out some of the things that he said over the time. Cause you know, he's kind of a no hold bar. It's what I love about it. Bongino is kind of this no holds barred guy who basically just calls it like he sees it.

He said that he slammed the January 6th investigations. He slammed the FBI raid on the Mar-a-Lago back in 2022. He's had some really tough things to say. And as a guy who was formerly in law enforcement, he's got some experience to back some of that stuff up. So, you know, you kind of listen to him, but he's just got a really great style. And it's unfortunate.

So I guess he'll be in there for the next four years. I won't have any Dan Bongino on the, you know, probably the next two to four years. We'll see what happens here. But I actually got the email on. saturday from westwood one and they said yeah uh due to the announcement of we're going to talk to you on monday so i guess we'll find out what's going to happen there but uh dan bongino Picked as the deputy director of the FBI. So it should be.

It should be interesting and exciting to see where this goes here in the near future. Between Kash Patel and now see, because Patel doesn't have any direct law enforcement experience, but Bongino does. So between the two of them, they should be able to go in there and really. make a, they should really be able to go in there and make some real differences, make some real changes. So we'll see.

We'll see where it goes from here, but I am anxious to see what the picture looks like a year from now. So we'll check it out. All right. We're going to jump into this whole discussion of the school. We're going to talk about HB 69 and what happened last week with the House Rules Committee. Excuse me, with the House Education Committee.

And then we're going to talk about this article from Emily Goody Kunz over at the ADN talking about the Anchorage School Board. Because there's some things said in this article that make me go, what? What is going on? that I want to share with you and get your thoughts on as well. So we'll continue this discussion in just a moment. Don't go anywhere. We're going to take the break just a minute early here so we can get down to it. I hate being interrupted.

So we're going to get down to brass tacks and get back to it. The Michael Duke Show. Common Sense. Liberty-based. Free thinking radio. Back with more in just a moment. Don't forget to check us out on Facebook. Facebook.com slash Michael Duke show slash live. We'll return with more in just a moment.

Listened to by more staffers in Juno than any other show. Because their bosses told them to. And after what they just heard, oh man, they're gonna be best. You're a bad, bad man. The Michael Duke Show. Okay, let me... Sorry, my wife was apologizing for interrupting. I'm like, interrupt away. You're bringing me coffee. What more could you want? All right. Yeah, this whole thing with Murkowski and everybody else whining about the way that federal employees are being treated. I'm like.

Methinks they doth protest too much. Right. This is stuff that people who work for a living with in the private industry, they, you know, you kind of just expect that. Sometimes there's going to be metrics. There's going to be things that you don't understand or things that you don't really want to do, but you're going to do them anyway. And that's just, it's just part of the job. It's just part of the job.

And they act like this is some big, stinking hairy deal. It's just, it's astonishing. Let's see. Bongino is awesome. Debbie says she loves my red coffee mug. This is my mug. This is my favorite mug. And I don't know why I just love the big cafe style mugs, but this is this one and there's another one that says Honeydukes on it. Mmm. And this is why I normally drink my coffee before we do the show, because I end up getting stuff in my mustache and yada, yada, yada. So anyway.

Prax on Dembowski just said, I didn't realize I voted yes. I don't know about that. I just don't know about that. Jennifer Cronk said he put out an apology statement. Also, his vote didn't change the situation. So let's stop shooting inward people. But OK, but. Why? Why? I'm just asking. I'm not trying to shoot inward. I'm just asking the question, Jennifer. Don't shoot the messenger. Was he really? Because...

People were, you know, while he was, right? They were sitting, I mean, Bob says, use a straw. How would that look, me drinking coffee from a straw? I will put it in the flavor saver all day. I may want it for later, so that's why I'm doing it. It's also just a reminder that I need to... Trim my mustache. It's just a reminder.

The real problem, said Kevin, is that the majority did not allow him to change his vote when he asked to rescind the action. Yeah, I know. I mean, look, you did it. You did it. It is what it is. Again, it didn't really make a difference because it was down party lines, right? Or down. caucus lines. So I don't know if that would, although you needed 20. Well, Kevin, you tell me who else voted for it that it pushed it over the line.

Because if Praxis vote didn't push it over the line, because it was 19 to 19, right? Because Dibbert is out. So 19 to 19 with somebody out on the, who? If he wasn't the deciding vote, where, where did it come from? Remind me. I'm just, I'm just curious. I'm just curious. I don't, I really care one way or the other, but you know, I'm just curious.

All right, 20 seconds. Let's get back to it. Here we go. Elam was out. Okay, Bill Elam was out as well. So it was 19 to 18. Well, there you go. All right. Thank you, Becky. Rebecca Schwanke, uh, in the chat room as well. All right, here we go. The Michael Duke show, uh, common sense, Liberty based radio. Let's do this thing. Here we go.

The Michael Dukes Show. Not your daddy. Wait, sorry. Not your daddy? Ooh, not your daddy's talk radio. Whew. I was scared for a second. Thought we were going down. Here's Michael Dukes and the show. Okay, welcome back to the program. So a lot of things happened last week in the house. The education committee and the House floor and more. And we were just talking during the break with a couple of representatives in the chat room, Kevin McCabe, Rebecca Schwanke. And it.

It is it's interesting because one of the things that happened and maybe one of you two can give me the actual breakdown of the number of votes in the end run. But the bill was just. running wild the people who the proponents of this bill have been pushing it super hard super hard right you've got um You've got Kathy Giesel and Chuck Kopp who are really pushing for this bill to make it out of the house and get over there because the school districts need the money now.

Right. That's they need the money now. So they rolled it out of the House Education Committee. Now. Much has been made. Much has been made on the bill on Wednesday. They rolled it out of the they were Tuesday. I guess they rolled it out of the education committee and it went into House finance. Now, when I say they rolled it out, they didn't have enough votes to get it out of the committee on the committee's own merits. And so they had a House vote on the floor, which is Rule 49, 48, 49.

And much was made, much ado was made about North Pole rep Mike Prox, who voted. Yes, to pull it out of the House Education Committee to put it out on the floor or put it or excuse me, advance it to the next committee, which would be finance. And interestingly, it wouldn't have mattered one way or the other whether Mike Prax voted yes or no. He said later on that he voted, he accidentally pushed the wrong button. It still would have been 20 to 19.

Even if he'd voted no, it still would have been 2019 and it still would have passed. But there was some questions about what's going on. Is he for it or is he against it? Nobody really knows. Now, Mike Prox is a... pretty conservative guy he and i don't always see eye to eye but he's a pretty conservative guy and i like him and so um it seems a little weird to try and take shots at prax although

I see Must Read is kind of asking the question, somebody in the comments, oh, Prax is showing his true colors. He voted with his wallet. Again, this really doesn't, the bill would have passed because he tried to rescind it. He tried to rescind the action when he realized what was going on, and the majority wouldn't allow it. To me, that's more telling than anything else. When you're like, oh, duh, duh, I pushed the wrong, can we?

excuse me can we pull that can we do no that tells me more about it than anything else when they won't allow and you would have would have passed anyway they didn't want to take the chance Because they kind of sandbag people on this. People didn't know what was going on. All of a sudden it was like this snap vote to roll it out of committee and move it over to the next committee. Well, so then it immediately goes from that committee.

The House Education Committee gets voted out on the floor, the whole practice thing and everything else. And then it goes into finance. Now. the finance committee we're supposed to look at this and go over this and spend several days going through all the details of this major this is a multi-million dollar uh in long terms it's a billion dollar funding bill right it And I love how the news media keeps soft selling this. It would increase school funding by roughly 500 million over three years.

Well, again, Brad Keithley had the, Brad Keithley had the finance, the fiscal note on this, and he broke it out. He broke it out by spending. And I'm just looking for his I'm looking for his because he actually had it broken down. And when you look at the fiscal note, is this it right here? This is it. Boom. Right here. The fiscal note. They say it's roughly 500 million over three years. Well, according to the fiscal note. It's.

going to be um well yeah it's it's going to be with with the uh with the accumulation of the pegging it to inflation it will be about 500 and just under 500,000 in the first three years. But what you're not looking at is the long-term effects because it starts going up between 55 and $60 million a year, every year. And so Brad projected it out based on their current projections and what the calculation was that they were using. And it.

My friends, we're talking about a bill that in 10 years is going to be over a billion dollars a year in additional spending. And that's just the one bill. that doesn't account for anything else that's going that doesn't account for any other spending defined benefits increase in government contracts you know anything doesn't it just just that

So you'd think that they'd want to go over this with a fine tooth comb in the finance committee meeting. But they just dumped it out of finance. There was a. Second procedural vote. On Wednesday, the or excuse me, on on Thursday, they got it out of the house. They got it out of the less than an hour into the bill's first hearing. Fairbank's GOP rep, Will Stapp, made the motion to just move it to the floor. Now, this is an interesting maneuver by Stapp because his commentary was, and I quote now,

My problem with HB 69 is that the House Democratic majority has not offered a way to pay for it. The truth is, there is no way they can pay for this without instituting a tax or eliminating the permanent fund dividend. but they want the public to believe they can. It's disingenuous and irresponsible. And he said, basically, without new revenue measures to pay for the school funding, discussion of HB 69 in the finance committee, further discussion.

Would be pointless. So they voted to just, I mean, within an hour, it was in the committee an hour and they voted it onto the floor. Then a motion was made on the floor. Well. then let's open it up and let's have discussions on it. Let's open it up to discussions and amendments. And this is where people started pooping their pants. Because the majority does not want them. They are using the committees to control the bill in such a way that the minority has no voice in the amendments to the bill.

Because they dominate the committees, right? They're the majority. So putting it out on the floor and then allowing it to be discussed and amended on the floor, that creates some problems for them. That creates some real problems. And so they are pumping the brakes hard right now. They were very surprised that it came out of finance so quickly. And Bryce Edgman said Friday that a week or more of hearings were planned in house finance. And he said, slowing down the bill for now.

would allow legislators in Dunleavy's office to continue attempting to forge a consensus educational deal see this is the thing they were going to try and force it through until It came up that they were going to go out on the floor with it and the minority was going to have a say in how it was written. And then, oh, no, no, now we've got to pump the brakes and we've got to go back to the governor. Now, I don't know what the play here is. I really don't.

I really don't know what the play is because the governor has already said that if you give me a bill, and I'm paraphrasing and taking some kind of some, I'm reading between the lines of what the governor said. But basically, he said, if you bring me a bill that is funding only, all it has is the funding. It has no metrics. It has no policy changes. It has nothing to deal with.

delivering a better product, i.e. better academic achievement scores for our students. If you bring me nothing, no policy changes, you know, charter schools and the. the open enrollment thing and all the other things that he's been talking about, he's going to veto it. So I don't know if they're just trying to paint.

A picture of tall man bad if they know that they can't afford it, but they painted themselves into a corner. I mean, that might that might be part of it. Many of these legislators ran. on a platform of we're going to get you your school funding.

We're going to get it to you. You deserve it. Your children deserve it. I mean, no talk about how do we pay for it? Where does it come from? Do you want a tax to do it? You're going to lose the PFD. I mean, none of that, but they were talking. So maybe they've painted themselves. into such a corner that the only way to get out of it is to put forward a bill and say, look, I voted for it. Oh, it's the governor that vetoed it. It's his fault. Maybe that's the tall man bad plan.

right? That they put it in there. They put a bad bill in that has no accountability, has no funding mechanism, has no way to pay for it. And then they can blame the governor. for when it fails and they can go back to their constituency and beat their drums and say we tried but we just you know this is why we need a democratic governor maybe that's the long maybe that's the long game here i don't know

I can't see any other reason for it. I mean, why would you waste all this time and political capital in the first six, seven weeks of the legislative session, putting together a bill that has no chance of passing the governor's desk? without some of the things that he's asked for. Now, the Senate has been quiet on this. The Senate really has not, I mean, you know, Loki Tobin talked about the $1,900 BSA increase and some of the other stuff, but...

The Senate has really not said anything else on it other than both Willikowski and Stevens saying, how do we pay for it? And of course, Bert Stedman saying, how do we pay for it? And pretty much everybody, even people who you understand are bigger government Republicans saying, how do we pay for it? I guess at least the Senate is asking that question right now. I mean, except Loki Tobin. She's just like, we need it. Shut up and give us our money.

So the House majority is now slowing down this fast-moving bill, and we'll see what happens here. It's an interesting move by Will Stapp. I will say that. I want to talk to Will about this because I think this is an interesting... It's interesting. His perspective on this. Look, it's ridiculous. There's no point. Basically, he's saying all these committee hearings on this bill are a sham. Because. They've not offered any way to pay for it.

They have no way to pay for it without eliminating the PFD or instituting some kind of tax. But if they're not going to bring that up, then why are we wasting our time? I can respect him. I respect the hell out of him for that. This is ridiculous. I'm not going to be part of this charade, this sham. And then Mia Costello.

Mia Costello, who's the minority leader, said, House Republicans should be part of the education discussion. We owe it to Alaskans to have a real conversation about how to improve our schools. Our caucus includes members with deep experience in education. We're committed to improving outcomes for students, teachers and families. This is a critical issue. We will continue to push for the opportunity to discuss meaningful solutions to both funding and.

This is when she was they were talking about bringing it out on the floor and they yoinked it and said, no, no, we're not going to. Why can't we have a discussion about this? Because they don't want the minority to participate. This really, in the long run, is going to come down to funding. And it's going to come down to the fact that Alaskans are going to have to understand that there's just no more money.

And this betting on the if-come, which we're going to get into in the next segment with the school districts, this betting on the if-come is not sustainable. It's not realistic. And Alaskans need to understand that. We keep seeing school district after they know that there is a problem. They know that they're in deficit. Right. They know that they're in deficit. They know the deficit is going to get worse because of declining enrollment. And that decline is.

continued to project it to decline, right? It's continued on a downward slope. They know that it's just going to get worse. And yet they consistently budget and make things happen and plan. as if the state is going to continuously bail them out. And then when the state does bail them out, something else happens, which we're going to talk about here. In just a second, because it is fascinating to watch this discussion.

Emily Goodykins over at ADN has got a couple sentences in this whole big article that really caught my attention. We're going to share that with you next. The Michael Duke Show. Common Sense, Liberty Base, Free Thinking Radio. you Running on 100% pure beard power. Oh, also some coffee. We dip our beard in coffee. Ha, nice beard. The Michael Duke Show. Truth. We dip our beard in coffee. All right. Let me get caught up over here. Let me get caught up over here. Scrolling backwards here.

Every single person should write their blah, blah, blah, blah. We need it to get it to the floor for debate, says Kevin. I'm sorry. I'm scrolling backwards. You guys have been verbose here. Oh, I see. Okay. All right. Sorry.

All right, I'm just going to pick a spot and go. Jennifer says the other thing that's a problem is the House Dems wanted to sit in the rules committee. House Republicans tried to get the bill to the floor for debate so we can settle this and move on. The Dems don't have the money to pay for it, so they don't want it in the public eye.

Yeah. Yeah. Shriggy and Galvin said in finance committee, it's not about the money. It's about the children. You're in the finance committee. Of course, it's about the money. I mean. What? What? Yeah. House finance didn't look at the fiscal notes as Ben Carpenter. Let's see. Bring it to the floor. Kevin said we need to get it to the floor for debate. Alaskans need to see where the money is coming from. What? You want to starve the school, says Harold? What a bunch of school haters. All right.

The House majority now has been on the record cutting education spending, playing checkers. Miguel says nothing but crickets when asked how to pay for HB 69, which is a question each day. Yeah. No, exactly. Harold projects that Dunleavy's veto would be overturned. I don't know if that's true. I don't know. Did someone say fiscal plan, says Ben Carpenter? I heard. Did someone say fiscal plan? All right. Maybe. This is a pertinent question. Miguel says...

Didn't they get a big one-time money last year? If so, didn't they say it would bring up scores and that your report card shows that we're 52? That's a good question. Right? You know.

understand that there's no more money says henry bs can't afford to pay a full pfd right nuts you need yourself a new perspective mike sounding like your prop your poop there is no more money henry i mean i don't know what else to say it's just it's just math bro it's just math that's the thing it's just math bro um All right. So, all right. We're down to the end. I finally got to the end of the discussion there. But we're going to come back to that.

Oh, I was going to read this earlier, but we got way late on something else. Do I get enough time? I do. This is Anthony's. This is what, if Anthony had been in charge of Doge, this, he said, this is the letter that he thinks that Murkowski would have been okay with. Dear.

Insert non-triggering pronouns here. Congratulations on being here for another week. If you could possibly find the time in between your one hour poop breaks, internet surfing and chatting with all the other employees and give us a quick review of all the stuff you did, that'd be great. Only if you want to and have time. to do so we don't want to trigger your anxiety depression ptsd sphere spiders etc cheers oh anthony oh anthony you are a gem

That's good internet right there, my friend. Yeah. Math is racist. A vote for HB 69, says Barbara, is a vote for an income tax. Because that's the only way you're going to be able to pay for it. In the long run, maybe not next year, maybe not the year after. But by the time you're done, I mean, in three years, it'll be 500 million. In 10 years, it'll be over a billion dollars. That's just. That's just math. A vote for HB 69 is a vote for an income tax. Have a nice day. End of story.

Let's see. I'm... Oh. Kevin says everybody needs to send comments to their legislators. He says legislators are supposed to work with constituents. The other side claims they have thousands of comments in favor of passing HB 69. We have almost none. We're supposed to be a representative republic. I work for our constituents. We need to hear from our boss. We all need to hear from our bosses, the people. Yeah, I could see that. All right, here we go. Jumping back into it. The Michael Duke show.

I think Barbara said it best to vote for HB 69 is a vote for an income tax. Yeah, I agree. Even if they take all of the PFD. That will only fill the void for about a year. And then they'll be looking for something new. That's the thing. By the end of year three, when all 500 million of this... New payout would be instituted. We're definitely looking at a tax of some kind. That's just the way it is. I want to get over here, though, to this story in the ADN. Emily Goody Kunz. Goody Kunz?

um, writes this piece with a $111 million deficit, Anchorage school board set to vote on devastating quote unquote budget. Devastating. That's a word that she pulled from some of the commentary because, man, they've got everybody up in arms, which, again, working as intended. That's just that's they're doing what they're going to do. The story goes on to talk about that the Anchorage School Board is getting ready to vote tomorrow on a budget that would slash $43 million from the school budget.

That would cut more than 380 teachers, staff and administrative positions. It would end some academic programs. It would increase class sizes and it would eliminate all middle school and some high school sports. Now. This had the desired effect when they put the word out on this. Everybody and their mother came down there in their school colors and said, we need that. Oh, don't you dare. And of course, nobody's answering the question. How do we pay for it?

I mean, I just I hate to be the little black rain cloud to rain on your parade. But how do we pay for it? But some interesting things came out of this. Some interesting things came out of this. First of all, $594 million, half a billion dollars on education in Anchorage alone. Such a big number. And that tells me a lot, quite honestly. That tells me a lot. They go on to talk about how, oh, this is so bad. This is the worst that it's been in 50 years.

That the school board president said, you know, oh, maybe we can add some money back if the state restore if they restore the cuts and they give us more funding they can do. This is part of the problem. Part of this problem. With this district and pretty much every district that's dealing with a deficit and not being realistic is that they're not even trying. To create a budget that lives within their means.

They're mandated to produce a balanced budget, but the budget is always balanced on the if-come from the state. They never look at it and say, you know what, we should just... We should count the BSA as it is for whatever the amount is, and that's what we count on.

and then all the other sources of funding, and now we cut back to this number. That's what you would do, right? Because the BSA is locked in stone, pretty much. Nobody's going to reverse the BSA right now to take it to a different level. So you know you can count on that. You know you can count on your federal money.

You know you can count on your local contributions. There's our budget number. Now we need to build it. But see, these school districts have been running deficits for, some of them, up to 10 years. They've been in deficit spending. It's a crisis every year. I remember back in Fairbanks, it was a crisis the last couple of years I was there because, oh, we're just not sure if we're going to get the money from the state. It has become.

Theater. Because they're not truly working on a realistic budget. They're always a crisis means they can put the pressure on the legislature to get more money. So, again. Working as intended. During the February 18th school board meeting, Superintendent Jarrett Bryan said that he's hopeful the district will get more state money, but, quote, we have no idea what the final revenue number would be.

It would put us in a very precarious financial situation if we budgeted for dollars that we don't have. Again, you know how much the BSA is going to be now. the regular, whatever it's at right now. I know you want an increase, but you know what it is right now. Budget on that. This is not that hard. Budget on that.

So then the story goes on to talk about the number of kids in the classroom and how, oh my God, there was 300 people at the meeting talking and saving the programs and the librarians and the nurses. And they're talking about cutting 295 teacher positions. And what that would do to the number of kids in the classroom, it would increase by four.

bringing kindergartners up to 26 kids per class and first grade to 27 and second grade to 29 and third grade to 30. And it just goes and goes, but then they go on. There's, there's a couple, there's a couple. throwaway sentences at some point that I'm getting into that I'm about to get to that. Because they keep going on about, oh, the number of students in the classes and the increasing of the ratio and all this other kind of thing. And they had one teacher who was like.

If you increase my students by 20 more, that's an increase in my workload and I'm not receiving a pay raise to compensate. Okay, well, I mean, welcome to the party, pal. But there's one throwaway sentence here that really kind of caught my eye. More than 80% of the district's budget is spent in the classrooms and on student support. 80%. But then it goes to break it down. Paying for teachers, principals, paraprofessionals, counselors, librarians, supplies, equipment, security, activities.

and curriculum. Wait a minute. In classrooms, this is money spent in, this was part of the problem. Remember when they used to have that 70% had to be spent in the classroom? The problem is, is that they kept redefining what was classroom spending. Now, you tell me, when you think about classroom spending, Which one of these do you think classifies as, you know, in broad terms, as classroom spending? Teachers? Sure. Absolutely. Supplies? Sure. Absolutely. That's classroom spending.

Curriculum? Yes, that curriculum, that's direct classroom spending. But principals? No, that's administrative call. Paraprofessionals? No, that's also administrative. Counselors? No, that's also administrative. Librarians? That's also equipment. Security and activities. Those are not direct classroom. But see, that's what they did. They started including all these things in the. And now they're telling you 40, 80 percent of the district's budget is spent in the classroom.

Remember what Sarah Montevano told us, and I think Don Ardwin said the same thing. It's like 49% is what's actually being spent in classroom on classroom services. The rest of it's being consumed by overhead. So is it really that hard? They go on to talk about how they're going to cut the gifted program out. Of course, they're going to cut the gifted program out. They're going to cut the sports program. They're going to cut the music. They're going to cut the immersion language. They're

But here's the interesting thing. Again, another throwaway line. They're talking about cutting 285 teachers, and then there's one sentence here in the middle. Because the district already has about 200 vacant positions and more staff will leave for retirement or jobs elsewhere, the district can largely avoid layoffs.

But wait, I thought you were laying off 285. No, we have 200 positions already. Plus the people that. What? You just said up in the top of the article, 290. We're going to cut 295 teaching positions. Oh, but 200 of them are already vacant, and another big chunk of them will leave with their... What? Then you get down to the discussion about the actual budget.

And remember, every year it's a crisis. Remember last year they had an $80 million deficit? That was last year. $80 million and change. Like $89? and they were, we need the money, we need the money, we need the money, we need to up the BSA. But the governor vetoed that, but he did approve the one-time funding that would have been basically what the BSA increase would have been. What did the Anchorage School District do?

With that money, that they were so... Last year, the school district saw an influx of one-time state funding in addition to the BSA. Anticipating a shortfall... The school board kept much of that one-time funding in reserves for the coming school year. So you didn't need it last year? You kept it in reserve for this year? Because you knew... What? We needed it last year. You lived without it because you put it in the bank and now you're going to spend it. This is so much theater at this point.

And the problem is, is that most people are not analyzing it deep enough. They're running on emotion. Because my kid and my kids got to have his sports or his music or is this or is that they're not getting outraged by the lack of academic response. They're outraged that the school district may cut back on a program or do. But again.

we're going to cut 295 positions. They don't tell you that 200 of them are not even filled. The 95 that are remaining, a bunch of those are going to be, people are going to retire or move away. So is it really the crisis that... Folks, I mean, we're getting played. And we're going to continue to get played. This is a billion dollars, half a billion dollars in spending.

In the Anchorage School District alone. That's big business. There's a lot of people with their fingers in the kitty on that. And we're all getting played. That's what's happening. All right. Well, I'm out of time for today. Thank you for coming on board tomorrow. Brad Keithley, Chris Story. We're also going to talk with Chris about his fair tax in the second hour. But we got to go. I mean, just go read these articles and be analytical about it. You could see how we're getting played here.

Be kind, love one another, live well. The Michael Duke Show, Common Sense Radio. 44,000 kids, half a billion dollars. This, this whole thing. this whole thing is again just a bunch of theater this whole i mean we're gonna have to cut 295 positions we didn't tell you that 90 of them are already gonna be vacant but it sounds good

No discussion about the one-time funding. No discussion. No word that they took most of that one-time funding and they put it in the bank to use it for later. This whole thing is just... It's just astonishing. And the more that they talk about it, the more that you get these throwaway sentences in these articles, you realize that if you're reading between the lines, you're seeing exactly what they're doing. I mean, again, I hate to I hate to go back to it, but that just that one sentence.

Because the district already has 200 vacant positions and more staff will leave for retirement or jobs elsewhere, the district can largely avoid layoffs. Yet the headline reads, 295 teaching positions eliminated. Cutting. No, no, I'm sorry. Cutting more than 380 teachers, staff and administrative positions. 295 of those would be teachers.

The change to class sizes related to cuts of 295 teachers positions would cause resounding impacts throughout the school district. But again, you know, half of half of article later. the district already had 200 vacant positions so what are they really cutting it's all posturing this is about the money folks this is about getting the money into this machine

I hate to say it, it's not really about the kids in the long run. All right, we got to go. We'll see you guys tomorrow. Be kind, love one another, live well. The Michael Duke Show. Radio Skin. And now we are slimy lizard internet people. It's the Michael Duke Show.