Tuesday 4/8/25 | Rep Sarah Vance on PFD | Headlines | Story's AWOL

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.

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 friends. How are you doing? Good morning and welcome to the program. It is... The Tuesday edition of The Michael Duke Show. Usually Truth Tuesdays, what we quietly call amongst ourselves the pain day, right? That's where they normally bring in Brad Keithley.

We get all the bad news and everything else, but Brad still... on vacation. He's still wandering around afoot in Scotland, following the, he's a Celtic band groupie. He's following around, uh, you know, all the, anyway, he's having a great time. He's having a great time. And he's been enjoying it. He'll be back next week. But we decided we needed to bring on some new stuff because there's so many things happening in the legislature, including.

Of course, what we talked about yesterday, the accidental PFD. It's the accidental PFD. We're going to talk about that here in just a moment. And of course, all the other things that are happening in the legislature. Sarah Vance is waiting in the wings patiently. So early for her. I feel bad. But, you know, we got to do what we got to do.

We're going to talk with her here in just a few moments about what's happening in the legislature and this session. Then in hour two, we've got some headlines to recap, but then we're going to talk with Chris Story. The man from Homer who will come in and give us our weekly life coaching and uplift and so much more. He actually told me what the topic was yesterday. Because he was mocking me. I mean, it's his thing. It's how he rolls. He's mocking me. The frequency of fulfillment.

was the topic for today with Chris Story. So it's a good way to end the show. It's a good way to end the show. So we're going to do that in hour two. Meanwhile, I think we should just dive right into it here and get things ready to rock and roll. So let's do it. Let's jump in. and get the program started this morning with Representative Sarah Vance. from District 6 down here. in uh in the homer area she's pouring herself a cup of java out of a michael duke show mug wow look at that that's a

Boy, talk about brand loyalty. That's pretty amazing stuff right there. Six o'clock club member. You know, she gets that because she gets to come on at six o'clock. Although I don't think that she normally gets on the program at six o'clock, but you know, she, she, she's here. She's a trooper. So she got it. Good morning, Sarah. How are you this morning? Good morning. You're all ready to face another day, another beautiful day in Juneau?

I am. I'm feeling faithful this morning. Feeling faithful. Okay. All right. Good, good. Well, I appreciate you coming on. And breaking the alarm clock to get up so early and do all that, I definitely appreciate it. We are, you know, we're all ready to get into it here. Yesterday we talked a lot about... some of the weirdness that seems to be going on down in juno um and uh i guess i'll give you the thumbnail recap and then i'll let you comment on it and give us your thoughts but

You know, we saw everything that was going on. It seems like the House majority wants to... Well, I mean, I would say abdicate their responsibilities. They pass a $74 million cut. onto the governor and just say, cut wherever you want. No, no, no direction, no delineation.

Although if you ever tell one of those folks that we need to cut, they'll say, where would you like us to cut? Right? Because that'd be the first question out of their mouth. But now they pass the hot potato over to the governor, who no matter where he cuts, they can then turn around and say he's the bad guy. Uh, because it's, I mean, it's like the political hand grenade, right? Oh, well we get, it's helped to him. It's his fault that you, we cut whatever program.

And then we get the accidental PFD, which gets left into the budget, $3,800 PFD, which I took a poll yesterday. And we're all like, yep, go ahead, draw it out of the CBR and give us that money. That's fine. We might as well get this train wreck started. Oh yeah, absolutely. You know, there's, and I'll tell you, I'll tell you why in a little bit when we get to that, but at this point.

The legislature has no will to do the right thing, which is to cut the size and scope of government. So we might as well get things started. But that was kind of the whole recap from yesterday. And then, of course, we talked a little bit about it, but we didn't get deep into it. Oil prices and the fact that the permanent fund itself has taken a bit of a dip over the whole tariff situation. And so the situation has gotten even worse than it was yesterday.

Uh, and so, uh, that's where we, you and I laughing about this because if you don't laugh, you'll weep uncontrollably. Right. I mean, but I'll, and I'll tell you, it is, it's, it's so bad. And you know what? Here's the worst part. It's so preventable. I have been talking about this for 15 years. And yet it's so preventable. And everybody looked at me like I was some kind of freaking tinfoil hat wearing moron.

Well, no, that would never happen. I mean, we're too big to fail. It would never go wrong. We'll always have money. It will don't, you don't, you just, you little radio talk show host, you just sit there and be, just sit there and be quiet. I mean, totally preventable. With that setup, well, that was a great setup, wasn't it? Sarah Vance joins us. Hello, Sarah. Y'all ready to take a bite of this apple? It's going to be an interesting one today. I am actually.

And this has been my response in our caucus meetings because it's so bad you can't help but laugh. You know, you say the Democrats are just handing this. this ticking time bomb to the governor, but actually they're handing it to the Senate. You know, last week we passed the fiscal year 25 supplemental. We had an $81 million deficit.

the previous budget and they of course increased it but was gonna draw from savings to pay for it we didn't give that to them we said wait a minute We don't need all of these extra things, so we're not going to give you our savings for that. They passed it to the Senate without any funding attached to it. So now it's in the Senate to figure out. Now we have an operating budget that they couldn't get the changes they wanted out of their own finance committee.

It's not being calendared for the floor right now for a full vote of the House because they're trying to figure out how to fix it after Finance Committee. It's unprecedented. So I can't help but say, hey, You know, you wanted this job. You wanted to be in power. So what are you going to do? Well, there's an easy way to fix it. You just have to take it to the floor and amend it. But see, they don't want to have that discussion in the public, in the most public arena.

which is the floor session, because then everybody has to stand behind their votes. It can't just be a handful of people in a small room in the finance committee making those financial decisions. There's an easy way to fix this. they done screwed the pooch on this, right? They've made, they're the ones that were unable to carry the heavy lift in the finance committee. They made the mistake about the PFD, et cetera, et cetera. Now they don't know what to do. They're in a conundrum.

They are because they were supposed to have the budget over to the Senate already. And now they are trying to figure out what to do because they know they don't have the votes to cut a full PFD on the floor. And because that would expose to the public. And that would get them in a bind because that is, Hammond said that is the one thing that the people will hold their government accountable to. And right now we have a de facto spending cap.

So the unfortunate side is that the people in the Senate, we have the... co-chairs of finance who have no problem cutting the budget and in fact they are already uh i think they're crafting their own budget regardless of what the house does gonna put it all together in one big beautiful turducken and gonna send it back to the house

for an up or down vote that's my prediction the day before i guarantee it'll be the day before because we're 12 days away from the session ending right isn't that what it is the 20th 21st Uh, in May. Oh, it was in May. I don't know why I thought it was April. Okay. We've got time now. Okay. I was thinking for some reason I was thinking it was April. Okay. Well, Hey, even I make mistakes. It's all a good.

Every day I make mistakes. But yeah, so yeah, they're going to go over there. They're going to craft it. They're going to stuff it back down your throats. Have a nice day. um it's crazy now uh the the the accidental pfd talk to me about that how How in the world did that happen? I mean, really, in a world of all the things being equal, Andy Josephson, of all people, who is no fan of the statutory or the PFD in general, I think.

Um, as the chair of the, how did this, how did this even happen at this point? Well, um, you know, the ADNs asked him and it was just an oversight. I mean, it's a billion dollar oops. I mean, you know, no big deal. We'll just leave it in there. Um, and, uh, and of course the only way to fund that because there is no other source of money would be through the CBR, uh, the CBR. Oh, that's what Rob Meyer says. 90 days would be April the 20th.

So that's me. That's, that's me. Yes. That's me going wishful thinking, thinking that the legislature. Gosh, Michael. Yeah. We're thinking that the legislature would follow the law. What was I thinking? I'm so sorry. I'm, you know. That's why I had April 20th on the brain, because that's the 90 day mark, what the people wanted. But what am I thinking? Of course, it's whatever they want to do. Right now, we're just trying to figure out how to get the budget to the floor. First things first.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, 90 days, though, seems like a reasonable time to try and get a budget to the floor. I don't know why it would take so long. So this thing went out of house finance and it's waiting to go on the floor, right? It's not going to any other committees. This is it. Well, there is the rules committee that is the committee that all bills go to to be calendared for the floor. they could choose to try to fix it in Rules Committee.

Unprecedented is the word you're looking for here. I was going to say that the word unusual is not strong enough. And really, I think might break with tradition enough that it might not be technically. kosher by the rules of order, by Mason's rules, right? I mean, I just, because that's not a committee that deals with financial issues per se. That's a whole different deal. You were chair of the rules committee.

Right. I was a member of the Rules Committee. I am a member of the Rules Committee currently. Right. And there has been some minor... fixes to budgets in the rules committee prior, but not substantial changes. And this would definitely be a substantial change. so i think we will know by tomorrow if they choose to schedule the the budget in rules committee because they have to have a five-day notice for the public that is going to be heard in rules.

But we'll see because they have the opportunity to put the budget on the floor tomorrow. and say, let's deal with it on the floor. where we can have the full body be able to discuss how we're going to fix this. But I think they're in a conundrum right now. A conundrum is right. And a conundrum wrapped up in an enigma. swallowed by a mystery it's uh

Well, it's interesting to say the least. Sarah Vance is our guest. We're up against the break. We're going to continue here in just a moment. Don't go anywhere. The Michael Duke Show continues. Man. All right. Well, we'll see what happens. We'll see what happens. And we've got Alaska North Slope crude dropping pretty substantially.

What does that mean? $2.2 billion loss in the PFD, or in the permanent fund, rather. What does that mean? We'll go over all that with Sarah Vance in just a moment. The Michael Duke Show. If you missed the show, you can listen to it on your time with Duke's On Demand. Free. Like America used to be. Streaming live every weekly morning on Facebook Live and MichaelDukesShow.com. Okay, commercial break time. Sarah Vance is our guest and puppy. Sarah Vance and puppy.

I'd hold my puppy in my lap, but he weighs about 40 pounds, so I can't quite do that here this morning. But sometime during the morning, I'm sure my wife's dog will bust into the studio and we'll... and we'll do it uh good to have your uh your your emotional support animal down there right i mean it's uh you need that sometimes to just I'm just, I'm just calming. I'm just cross for buying. I'm just petting the dog, you know? Yes. My children will remind me, hold your dog, hold your dog. Yeah.

I mean, this is kind of maddening to watch all this stuff. The hoops, the political hoops in the theater that has to be portrayed on this deal. They don't want to take it to the floor. The Senate's decided they're going to take the bull by the horns and do their own thing. I mean, what is that? This is what's interesting. Supposedly they're in alignment. And Josephson made some kind of comment that he was in talks with the Senate.

I mean, is he giving the cursory nod to the Senate to go ahead and take over from his hot mess? Or what's the what do you think? I don't think the agreements that they have now, I don't know what the agreements that are. Okay. If they have any. But, you know, Bert Stedman and Lyman Hoffman are going to do with whatever they want. And I don't think it's as willing of a relationship as what you're making it sound. They are not pleased.

at the issue at hand and it's been expressed. Everyone in the building knows it. This is a big problem. And they've already communicated that they're going to be making cuts. They're going to make changes. And, you know, that's something that that people need to be ready for is, you know, you talk about the price barrel oil going down. That means our revenue in the state.

dropping quickly and so we're losing money in the workable money in the budget on a regular basis and they were anticipating that So, you know, there's going to be some some wide sweeping cuts to the budget. So don't feel that all is lost. They're doing it. But it's just going to be a sobering process and people are going to have to realize we can't be looking to government as the big sugar daddy in the sky. That's the reality. The Fed's been making cuts.

The state has to make it because they haven't been making these changes, and here we are. Well, that's been part of the problem from the very beginning is that we have multiple generations now that are looking to the government as Uncle Shook. Every problem, the solution to every problem is government. I mean that's what we get for multiple generations of public school being indoctrinated about how the government solves all problems.

Never and eliminating basic economics from the curriculum, like basic checkbook balancing. Like, how does that work? By eliminating that and incurring the mantra of government solves every problem, this is how you get where you are today. where they keep looking at Uncle Sugar to say, well, why won't you bail us out even more? Bail us out.

You know, and now we've got a whole group of people in Anchorage who are screaming at the top of their lungs, tax me harder, daddy. They just want to be, you know, I mean, you know, oh, he's just, oh, tax me harder. I mean, that's what they want. I'm just like. The solution, Sarah... I'm about to get worked up. The solution... We have a spending problem, right? I mean, am I wrong? We have a spending problem, a spending problem that's been exacerbated over the course of 15 or 20 years.

to a real revenue problem and even if we solve the revenue problem the spending problem is still there the underlying problem they'll just suck up every available dollar that's there they'll hoover it up like you know there you go It doesn't matter how much revenue you pump into this. You could open up 10 more fields of oil and timber and change the mineral rights, royalties and everything else and pull in another four or five billion. They'd spend every single dollar up.

I agree. But one of the things that we aren't talking about is, you know, just like Doge has gone in and sought out to eliminate the waste fraud and abuse. We haven't done that in the state of Alaska. No, and there's no political will to do it. You're one of the few, you, Shower, McCabe, there's a few of you in there who are like, yes, we should be cutting. But again, they look at you like you're wearing your tinfoil hat. Like, how could we possibly survive that?

Right. That's the problem. I'm not saying the cuts aren't the answer. Cuts are the answer. The problem is there's no political will to get them done. Hold on. Sarah Vance, our guest. The Michael Duke Show. Copy sets. Liberty Banks. Free thinking. Radio. Do this thing now. Let's go. The Michael Duke Show. Not your daddy. Wait, sorry. Not your daddy? Ooh, not your daddy's.

Not your daddy, nor do I play one on TV. Tax me harder, daddy. That's where we're at today. The Michael Duke Show, Common Sense. Liberty-based, free-thickened radio. We just talked to Sarah Vance about the problem. The problem... I've been so sick of saying this. The problem is a spending problem. and has been a spending problem for decades in this state.

It doesn't matter how many new sources of revenue we, and this has always been my point with Brad Keithley, who's talked about taxes on this show for a long time. And the reason that he's talked about taxes is he's basically his point of view is. Taxes are inevitable with what's going on in the state. They're going to make it happen. We should have the conversation before it happens and it's forced down our throat, and we should choose the best form of tax. That's what he said.

My contention has always been they'll take every tax and spend even more because they have a spending problem. The solution, obviously, is a real tax cap. I mean, I don't know if it's ever going to happen, but I mean, not a tax cap, but a spending cap. That's the answer to the spending problem. But it doesn't matter how many new oil fields we open or how many new sources of carbon sequestration or new timber or minerals or whatever else.

they will hoover up every dollar that comes into the state. Whatever we do, oh, we need to offset the, no, they'll just suck it all up and spend it all. I mean, that's where we're at right now, Sarah. Right now, they're still getting emails and the majority is still demanding that we give $1,000 inside the formula increase.

to bsa plus the reading proficiency which is another 450 dollars per student on top of that and we're saying we don't have the money we don't have the money guys and they refuse to accept that reality why because they're perfectly okay with taking your dividend and taxing you in order to prop up the education industry And that to me is beyond unreasonable. The other thing is that I think people don't.

They don't believe that the taxes would impact them. They said, oh, tax me. But when I did a calculation on how much every worker would have to pay to balance this. deficit, it was nearly $5,000 per worker. And they said, no, no, no, you did it wrong. You're not supposed to do it like that. I said, I'm just calculating the numbers that you offered me.

We have maybe 400,000 workers in the state. We have a $1.9 billion deficit, which has probably increased today because of the price of barrel of oil. Our revenue has gone down. And I divided that up by the number of workers, the people who actually have a JOB, and it's nearly $5,000 per person. But instead, what the majority is going to do is tax every man, woman, and child by taking of your dividend.

So here we are, de facto spending cap, and unfortunately, it's going to come from the least among us. And that's the aggravating part, right? Is that they're not willing to make the internal changes needed. Right. Now you're saying... And somebody in the chat room just said, wait, did she say they were actually going to make cuts? Did the Senate, you're saying the Senate is probably going to make some cuts now.

I know who's running the show in the Senate, and I know what that means. Probably not going to be the cuts that we would make. and probably not enough cuts. What do you foresee happening? Do you have any predictions? I know you don't have a crystal ball or anything, but, you know, do you have any predictions as to what we're going to see? Because, I mean, again. It's a billion dollars plus, right? It's 1.4, 1.9, maybe two now. I mean, they factored the budget on $74.48 per barrel of oil.

Oil is currently sitting at less than $68 for Alaska North Slope crude and could potentially fall even deeper because the Trump administration said that's one of their goals is to get oil prices lower to help with inflation. So, I mean, it could go down to 65, potentially, which, I mean, wow. So what are they going to cut?

So word on the street is that there will be a 680 BSA, $1,000 dividend, and that new pilot projects, recent additions into the budget will be cut. So they're going to look to, you know. The last things that were added, the stuff that are, hey, we're just trying this program out for a little bit to see if it works, cut that out. So they'll keep the meat of things and start looking for it that way. So that's what I've heard is happening. They're going to go for the low-hanging fruit.

But also, I think that what will happen is that there will be one-time funding, education funding in the budget. because we can't make a commitment for inside the base student formula that Whatever we do in that will hold us to that in the future. And right now, next year's budget isn't going to be any rosier. No, it's going to be worse according to the 10-year forecast already. And then that's even without the...

Stock market tariffs, oil prices, everything else. It was already projected to be worse going forward. Every year it gets gloomier and gloomier for the next 10 years. So one of the things that we need to be communicating with our friends and neighbors and our school districts, you know, people have a voice at the school board level and they need to make those internal efficiencies. That's what I've been encouraging the state to do. I have the bill that would allow insurance pooling.

And I'm encouraging that conversation in the Senate to say, we need to do this because our school district on the Kenai Peninsula pays 18% of their entire budget goes to health care. and the cost is astronomic for those families. So if they were able to figure out a better plan just for that, then that means more to the classroom and help them balance their budget. Make smart decisions about how you're spending your money.

And right now, the schools don't want to change what they're doing. The majority in the legislature doesn't want to change the way that we're doing business. We have to do that. And those are the conversations that I hope the legislature starts to have because. you know we can't tax our way out of this the dividend isn't enough to cover the deficit in all of their big promises and that's the reality that they need to see

Sarah Vance is our guest here talking about it. So you're saying that the Senate, your feeling and the word on the street, the rumor mill. $680 increase, but not to the BSA, one-time funding, not inside the formula. $1,000 PFD and cuts to any new or pilot program. Does that include read by nine? I'm just curious. Is that one of the things that they're talking about?

is one of the pilot programs. We did pass that into law a few years ago. It will be interesting to see what that perspective is. I think that that will most likely be cut as well and they will just give a flat funding to schools. and say, hey, this is what we can do right now. You know, be blessed and do what you can. Because the reality is, is that that's still an increase to education funding. It's still a significant increase.

to education funding so i think the 680 bsa is another uh what 200 million dollars easy and uh you know that that's still generous especially when we're having to cut other programs right Sarah Vance is our guest. So Sarah, yesterday... We took a poll in the chat room because. You know, again, and maybe it's my frustration talking, but I was like, you know what? Fine. Go ahead and have a full PFD. Go ahead and tap the CBR to draw it all out.

And give it to the people. We might as well accelerate this beast to the point of no return because if we don't do it soon, the only time, okay, look, an addict, right? a drug addict, an alcoholic, whatever, they will only admit there's a problem when they finally hit rock bottom. They have to hit the solid rock bottom before they acknowledge that there's some kind of problem, right?

So you're recommending giving the whole bottle and say, finish it every last drop? Every last drop. Before we get into this madness of combining the permanent fund earnings and the regular corpus so they can tap into the corpus. Before they get to that point, let's just drive it into the guardrail right now and see if we can slow down before we hit the end of the bridge that's out. I'd rather drive it into the guardrail and skid to a stop than anything else at this point.

We only had one person say no in the chat room. There must have been 40 or 50 votes yesterday. You know, the people will do more with that money than the state would ever do. They'll they'll hold. I mean, I would have just banked that money and been like, there you go. You know what? What are we going to do? Because there is no political will.

to do the right thing now we're going to be in crisis mode they're going to cut some things but i guarantee you it won't be all the things i mean like last year we attempted to cut a bunch of funded but unfilled positions. Some of them not filled for years. One of them had not been filled in a decade. One or two of the positions had not been filled that long, and yet they were like, oh, no, I couldn't possibly do that. Okay. I mean, it's madness. It's absolute madness.

So, I mean, and I know in your capital minute that we have here on the program, you basically said, well, I can't stand behind a full PFD if it means drawing from saving. What what I mean, what do you say to the people who voted yesterday that say we're done? This whole thing has got to this whole thing has got to change. What do we what do we do? Well, this is where I came prepared to ask that question. We know that the Senate isn't going to give a full dividend. So in the House.

You want us to help the Democrats pass their budget by voting for a budget simply because it has a full dividend. It draws from savings. Just to make a point, when we know the Senate is going to change it all, we know for a fact that the Senate will not give a full dividend. They're going to cut it down easily to $1,000.

Now, there's a conversation about a 25-75 split, which is about a $1,600 dividend. But I don't believe that that is going to stay in the budget. So you want us to make a performative vote. and help give the Democrats the votes to pass their terrible $2 billion deficit budget. Does that make sense? Yes. No. I mean, at this point, because see, one of the other things is then they have to wear it.

Because then this is on them as well. I mean, there has to be some ramifications here. I mean, I understand, you know, you probably understand that this is our frustration talking at this point. We just want to grab somebody by the lapels and... Shake them furiously. But this is the problem. This is where we're at. I agree, but I doubt that they can get the votes to pass their own budget. So you want me to help them do that?

Yes. Yes. I mean, at some point, you know, look, I mean, at some point, I have to come back to the point of saying, this is the people's money. And they will do more with that money than any other group out there. They will do more with that money than anybody else out there. We need to, you know, it would be better for us to have the money than for government to have the money. And if that created a problem down the road. Yeah. If I felt that was the actual outcome.

then I would have no problem saying, let's put the dividend, the full dividend in the hands of the people where it belongs. No problem whatsoever. However, that's not what's going to happen. stop hitting me with reality okay i don't know i'm just i i want expectation management with the public is that the senate will not do it yeah and

That's the political game that we're playing here. I would love to come and say, I'm going to fight for your full dividend. I'm going to vote for that and give it to you. And then this and then it gets over to the Senate. They do what they do. And I say, well, you know, I tried. Or I could make the Democrats figure out how to pass their own nasty budget on their own. Because I'm telling you, they're struggling right now. They're struggling. They made this mess.

They should figure out what to do to clean it up. You want to make them eat some crow is what you want to do. I want to make them eat crow because we brought some budget cuts. We've brought some efficiency solutions. We brought the spending cap. We've brought the dividend formula. you know, to enshrine it in the Constitution. We've brought every element of a long-term fiscal plan that would help provide stability for times like these, and they didn't want it.

So I'm saying, OK, you wanted to be in power. Now you've now you screwed it up. And you want me to help pass your terrible budget? I don't want that on my record. I want people to understand what's really happening here. And I've been a defender of the dividend, but I'm also a defender of truth and reality. And I want the people to know. that there is no way that this majority is going to give you anywhere near a dividend because they want it all. Right. Well, that is the truth.

I mean, and I know it was a little hyperbolic to throw that whole poll together, but I mean, I'm so frustrated with everything that's going on because, again, they will suck up every available dollar. And, you know, Gary Stevens and company, they're all about using all the dividend money for whatever they believe is the best.

So, you know, we're not going to see it. We knew it was not going to happen. But I mean, in a perfect world, that money needs to be in the hands of the people. I 100% agree. The government is just, their track record is so... So piss poor at this point. All right. Sarah Vance is our guest.

We're going to continue. $1,000 dividend, what is that? Like $85.15? I think it's more like $87.13, I think. Yeah, it's less than that. I think it's $87.13, I think, is the number that Ledge Finance threw out there at one point. All right, we're going to continue here with Sarah in just a moment. I'm going to, now that I've. beat her up and throwing all these crazy ideas out there. We'll get her take on everything else and see where she leads us in the final segment of this hour.

She's all coffeed up, so be careful. It's going to be interesting. The Michael Duke Show, common sense, liberty-based, free-thinking radio. Hour one continues 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 pissed. You're a bad, bad man. The Michael Duke Show. I am a bad man. i'm a bad man i'm gonna say i think

is probably pretty excited that you just told the conservatives to vote for their budget. Help them out, he said. He said, you need to vote for that full dividend. I'm sure she's like, yes, we've finally turned the table. Yeah, no, just get that dividend in. I mean, if I thought that the house had all the power to do it, I would be 100% behind.

You know, but I mean, this is the frustration, right? I mean, we've been, this is the thing. This is one of those things where usually it's sweet to tell somebody I told you so because you're standing outside the area of effect. But the worst part is, is when you're, you're trying to sell people, I told you so. And you're also suffering along with them. You know, that's where every single Alaskan, it will feel this right now. Oh yeah, absolutely. They're all. It is, it's, you know.

And it's madness. It is absolute madness. That this is where we're at. And they keep looking at everybody like, well, what? The party's never going to end. The party's never going to end. It'll be fine. There'll always be money. There is no money. I think the reality is hitting them a little bit differently this year. It's not fully there because they still are rejecting adopting the 404 primacy that allows us to take hold of our permitting processes.

natural resources and we're saying guys don't you understand this will help us get the natural resource projects quicker to pay for all the things you know that's how we pay for the things right nope yeah nope we can't do that that'll cost too much and you know we have to have the feds helping us out because we couldn't possibly do this and we're like But you know where money comes from, right?

Yeah. Nope. Nope. We can't possibly. No, this is orange man bad. Just like tall man bad. This is like, we can't let anybody else have a win. It's all about us. And then of course, when they get egg on their face and they realize that. They've screwed up. They have nobody else. They're going to try and pass the blame to somebody else, but they can't at this point. Like I said, I want them to own this. I want them to own it. Anthony says, like in the infantry, MD.

The I told you so is like a frag grenade. It's real easy to say a five meter kill radius is small and ineffective until you find yourself inside the five meter bubble. That's true. 100% true right there. That's the heartbreaking part about this. We're all going to feel it. We're all going to feel it. We're all going to feel it. And I'm not here just for giggles. I'm here to bring solutions. And the frustrating part is that.

You know, you look at, man, the legislature's made changes to make, to reduce our spend and get efficiencies, right? And we're going, what in the world? We found out that just this year, the State Department is now going to online time cards instead of paper. time cards. Now it's finally going to be digitized. Like we paid for that in 2015 for them to modernize our payroll.

And they've been Fred Flintstowing our payroll. Ten years? We've been doing paper time cards even though they paid for an upgrade? And it's taken that long to transition to the new program. That is the efficiency of government in a nutshell. It's a modernization program that takes 10 years to implement. You know how many other programs there are like that, that we paid, the legislature paid to modernize a program, the SNAP benefits program, for instance.

It's taken forever to transition to a new program with all the information, and we still can't seem to get it together. Why? It's because we need some great managers working for the state who know what they're doing to get in there, clean it up. and make things happen. And so I want people to understand this isn't always nefarious activity by the state or the legislature.

We have people thrown into Into the job that are dealing with messes from 10 20 years ago that nobody knows how the problem started They have this big hairball to unwind and are going what in the world are we what can we do? ineptitude from you know 20 years ago it's reaping what i mean it's reaping the what people have sowed uh this is this is relevant donna says

That's absolutely. Zen said the quiet part out loud at last night's KPBSD school board meeting. He thanked Clayton for his 25 years of service for the district for getting us to where we are now and then stumbled into we're broke speech.

I mean, that's exactly. Thank you for your 25 years of service. So, by the way, we now find ourselves to be completely broke and inept and our budgets are a mess. But thank you for your service. I mean, that's where we're at right now. It's the same kind of thing.

I don't know how we got here. Well, we got here because of you. We got here because of the same people who've been in the legislature, the same people who've been in the bureaucracies. If it takes 10 years to modernize a time card program. We've got bigger problems. That is the again, the ineptitude and the inefficiency of government writ large right there. All right. We're going to get back into this. Here we go. The Michael Duke show. Common sense, liberty based, free thinking radio.

The Michael Duke Show. Seriously humorous with a pinch of intellect. Pinch of intellect. Sorry. That is humorous. Here's Michael Dukes. My question is, are they still using carbon paper? I mean, you know, is it just... I mean, is that how we're... Is it a copy? Are they using a mimeograph? You know, like one of the old crank mimeographs to get things done?

we're talking with sarah vance she just laid a doozy on us go ahead sir i'm sorry well so uh in my drawer on the house floor I needed to make an amendment to an amendment, and I pulled out an old carbon copy, you know, the three-layered piece of paper, and I wrote... the amendment and you have to take it to the clerk. And she looked at me, she goes, oh, this is old school. Where did you get this? And I'm thinking, I thought this is the way we always did it. This is what you've given me before.

So yay us. Carbon copy. We've got a carbon. She was just talking about the, we were talking about inefficiencies in government and she's like, they just now. got employees onto a computerized time card system. that they've been using paper cards, that the legislature paid and mandated that it be modernized in 2015, and they just now got them onto computerized time cards. A modernization program that took 10 years to implement. If that's not a snapshot.

Of what's wrong with government. I don't know what. Did they tell you why it took so long, sir? Was there any explanation? Or is it just like, that's just the way it is. in that Department of Administration. officer over information technology, and he just went in and got it done. You know, he sounded very capable, very excited that he was just bringing the team together.

that could do these things and that's what we need you know we we need people who know what they're doing get in there and just be able to get it done and um you know that's That's part of the problem is that we've been living off of really old technology and not figuring out how to just bring us in up into 2025. And so we're blowing millions because we're doing things the old fashioned way, data entry, you know, things like that. And so when I talk about efficiencies in government.

that we can do things differently and save money. I really mean it because people don't realize how old school a lot of our state systems are. It's embarrassing. I'm just looking at all the computers running on DOS inside the state at this point, you know, because they can't. Windows 3.11. You know, we're running on Windows 3.11. Sarah Vance is our guest. Sarah, we're down to the last seven, eight minutes here.

Where do we go from here? I mean, it's going to be a barn burner an hour or two. I'm telling you right now, folks, but where do we go from here? What do we do? I mean, this is. If you can't tell, uh, again... 15-20 years of frustration is finally starting to come to a full boil here.

on this deal because we're going to hit the wall. If we don't do something, we're going to have a catastrophe. And I know everybody's like, oh, but people might get, if we don't do something, everybody's going to get hurt. Not just a few people. It won't be triage. It will be a massacre. And that's the problem.

So one of the things that I think we need to keep in mind is that when you go to the chiropractor to get an alignment and put things back in order, there's a lot of snap, crackle, pop. We're seeing that on the national level right now with the things that the president is trying to do to get our fiscal house in order. and Alaska is lagging behind.

However, we're seeing a lot of things being exposed. There's a lot of snap crackle pop and people are moaning and whining. However, if we keep the right perspective, I think it's going to work out because we'll be able to make the changes to say enough's enough. And like you said, our back's against the wall. We don't have a choice but to make the changes that we've needed to make. But we need you as the public to be working with us legislators.

Like the conversation we had about the full dividend. I would love to vote for that to give you the full dividend, but that's not what's actually going to happen. Right now, I think that I should vote no on the Democrats' budget and not help them with their disaster. Not because I don't want the people to have the dividend. I absolutely do. But I know the reality is that Once it gets to the Senate, it's going to be cut down and we're going to be fighting for scraps for you.

Because of us Republicans, the people who have fought for a dividend for you, they can't possibly make it any lower. because there has been talk about making it lower than a thousand dollars right that's what we're fighting is for you to get any dividend at all right So, you know, I say talk to your legislator about the reality and understand we're doing everything that we can to hold on to get the money into your hands.

So again, to game out. So if we did what we talked about yesterday, if the house... minority went ahead and capitulated and said, fine, we'll give a full dividend to the people. That bill would still go over to the Senate. And then they would carve out the extra $2,000 that we pulled out of savings per person, and they'd spend it on something else, or $2,800 per person. They've already told you what they want to spend it on. Yeah, they're already spending it.

Doing it in the House is not the answer. I would love to see a floor vote on a full PFD between both bodies, but that's never going to happen. They don't want to take responsibility for that. They don't want to be the ones that actually cut it.

They want it to come out of committee so they can point to the committee and say, well, it was their decision as a committee, as a whole. It's not any one individual. And then they don't want to have it on the floor because they don't want to be held to it. Two minutes, Sarah. Final thoughts. What should we be looking for? What should we be doing? Where do we go?

Well, as always, I tell you, stay engaged with your representative, with your legislator. You know, talk to your friends and neighbors about the reality of what's going on. The reality is, is for the past eight years, the government has been using the permanent fund. to fund more than 60% of the budget right now. I forget what the percentage is this year, but that's where we're at. We have to make the changes. We've been trying to get fiscal responsibility.

Keep talking about that and encourage that and let people know what's really happening. It's not just, hey, those thieving legislators. They haven't made the changes to stimulate the economy so that we're relying on government services less. That's what we need to do. And right now, the red carpet is being rolled out for the state with LNG coming on and the Imperial RA opening up in the North Slope.

for more oil production. The more oil we have flowing through the pipeline, the more money in the bank, right? The more we develop our natural resources, the more money in the bank, because that's where new money comes from. It doesn't come from bank. They can't just print up more dollars. That's why we have inflation. The more you talk about this, talk to your kids about it. Don't expect education systems to teach your kids about financial literacy. You're the parents and the grandparents.

And I think the more that we talk about that and the need for it. is we're going to get Alaska in the right direction. So I'm excited. That's why I'm laughing about this, because I see this as an incredible opportunity. This is exactly where we need to be. It's no fun. But I see that we have a bright future and I'm going to continue to be excited about the things that are on the horizon in the midst of the mess.

Well, I hope we're able to learn from this. Again, more resources is not going to save the problem because the problem is the appetite for spending. And that's the main problem here. And hopefully these people will get a dose of medicine that will fix that. But we'll see. I'll wait and see. Repsera Vance, thank you so much for coming on board. We appreciate it. Hold the line for a sec. Folks, we're out of time. We've got to go. Hour 2 dead ahead. The Michael Duke.

Oh man. I just, I just, you know, it's the, you watch this and it's, you cannot, it's the train wreck in slow motion that you cannot turn away from. That's true. It's just that you could see it. You could see it happening. And these people, these people, meaning the big government people in our legislature, in our bureaucracies, in our school districts and boards.

They just don't see it. They don't see the reality. They're like, oh, this is fine. You know, driving 500 miles an hour on the highway with the top down and a beer in my hand. That's fine. No big deal. It'll be okay. Don't worry. It'll all work out. I got this. They're not saying that this year. They are... They are not as positive feeling about the budget this year. It's hitting them, but not hard enough because finance spent two hours.

arguing over increasing the Dolly Parton Imagination Library about the free books that go to kids. Two hours in finance committee. So it takes longer for some about what we should be focusing on. But, you know, we're getting there. Well, it was the shock. The shocked, I tell you, shocked expression. And I'm reading expression in through their commentary in the paper when all of a sudden they're like, oh, man, we just discussed like we just discovered that the budget is.

going to be horrific this year. I mean, we've been talking about this for the last four years on this program. The 10-year forecast, what the governor's put forward and what it looks like and how gloomy it is if we don't get our spending. We started talking about this back in 2017. No, I'm sorry. 2014. So 11 years ago.

We started talking about the ISA report that said if we don't pull our spending down to $3.9 billion per year, we're going to have a problem. Can we get everybody to commit to it? A lot of legislators did and then went right on beyond it. So we've been talking about this for 11 years.

And all of a sudden they get down there this session and all of a sudden it's like, oh, it's shocking. We're out of money. Like it didn't, what, when did that happen? I mean, have you, do you not read what they put on your desk? Have you not been reading what's going on? Do you not? Is it just we're too big to fail? That's it. It's we're too big to fail because look at it. Alaska has been in boom and bust. There's been fiscal policy working groups for years and then somehow we find more money.

And, you know, this this majority promise. uh two things they promised a huge increase inside the formula to education and also defined benefits and now they're doing everything they can to scramble to keep that promise and they don't care where it comes from. And they even produce their own fiscal note on the defined benefits program on what they're promising. They just came up with it themselves. The fictional fiscal note. Yeah.

They are not concerned about the reality of the money. I don't think they believe it or they believe that we can just tax the oil companies more. Everything will be fine. and and we'll bring an income tax And we'll be able to float it because, hey, it'll all work out. We're doing the good of the people. They truly believe that. We have some good-hearted people who are very misguided in their worldview, in my opinion.

And that's what we're struggling with is the worldview about either government is here to solve all the problems or it's not. And those of us who believe that it's not are trying to hold our ground and say, guys. We're going about this the wrong way. Yeah. Well, I mean, again, I've been screaming about this for so long. I'm hoarse and I'm just, you know, I'm exhausted. I'm exhausted because this is exactly.

where I predicted that we would be. And this is exactly what I have been trying to warn about for the last two decades. is that this is where we're going. And now that we've got all this conversation going on about combining the ERA and the permanent fund corpus, You know, again, what was the first thing I said in 1999 when I broke Mike in 1999? It was right after the big PFD battle that had gone on in the state where 82% of the citizens of the state had said, hell no, don't touch the PFD.

And they're at it again. They want access to the corpus of the fund. That's too big a juicy, a pot of money for them. And they would burn through it like a house of fire, just like they've done here. Just like they've done here. They'd spend every dollar of it and then go, oh, well, what do we do now? I guess we'll have to tax you all. Sorry. Free rides die hard, sweetheart.

Um, and it's, yeah, too big to fail. Too big to fail is what most of these people seem to think. Um, I'll give you the last word here, Sarah, two minutes. Well, I'm excited about the future. I think we need to stay focused on... the fact that we have Senator Sullivan, Nick Begich, and President Trump who are solely focused. on developing Alaska's natural resources and getting the money flowing again. And that gives us a lot of favor. There's promise.

So we need to be asking what we're doing to partner with that and to make this process easier and quicker. Instead of pitching a fit and screaming, oh, it'll never happen. We need to say, what can we do? Same thing in education. President Trump said, hey, I want to have programs where the money follows the child. What can we as a state do to help partner with that?

to make better options for our parents and students right now none of those conversations are happening in the legislature and that to me is more tragic than the budget conversations that we've had, like you said, for the past 15 years. we need to start changing the way that we're looking at the problems and talking about them because right now we're dealing in insanity. Madness, not just insanity, absolute madness. Keep thinking we're going to do the same thing over and over again.

And it's all going to work out. It's all going to have different results. This time, it's Lucy in the football. This time, it'll work out. Don't worry about it. It'll be fine. And yet here we sit when it's all said and done. All right. Well, Sarah Vance, thank you so much for coming on board. As always, it's good to talk with you, my dear. Thank you. Have a good day. Okay. Bye, Michael. Folks, we got to go. The Michael Duke Show, Common Sense Radio.

Whoa, buddy. 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. 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. Live around the world on the internet at michaeldukeshow.com and across the state of Alaska on this, your favorite radio station and or. fm translator good morning my friends and welcome to hour two of the big radio show for this tuesday edition um i um Uh, this is how today's going. Chris story. Uh, he says my time was off. Sorry. I'll be driving through traffic. I won't be able to.

I won't be able to be on the show today after all. Sorry. I hate letting Melissa down. Melissa's his number one fan. But yeah, it is what it is. So no Chris story turns out today. Damn, we really, really, really needed a Chris story today. After finishing up with Sarah Vance, now is the time to go through and get in with it.

My buddy John, who is with the Alaska Study Industry, says, we here at the Alaska Study Industry see nothing but clear sailing and sunny skies during these days of uncertainty. We patiently await for multiple contracts to be inked to give our much needed but unheeded advice to our esteemed legislative process managers. He's ready to do it. He is ready to do it. Oh, folks.

We are on the verge of madness. I think we actually were beyond madness at this point. I mean, we're just right into insanity at this at this juncture. We've got a state that has no money, a group of people who are committed to... Giving away the farm who are committed to, you know, absolutely giving their constituencies all the bells and whistles that they have promised.

Yesterday, we did the little poll where we talked about, you know, well, I mean, if the legislature, if the House is that they accidentally slip the PFD in there, then we should just go ahead and fund it. And that because the money is better in the hands of the people now in a perfect world, that would be the case. That's what would happen. We would get the money and we'd take care of it. And the legislature would then have to figure out what to do now that they have no.

way to fall back on anything. Unfortunately, because of the process, If this were to happen in the House, it would then go over to the Senate, and then the Senate would strip out that extra $2,800 per person and spend it on whatever they want. So Sarah's right. Sarah is right because of the process. I mean, if the house was the final stop on it, then yeah. We, you know, then yes, it would be, it would make total sense.

it would make total sense to pass the budget, to draw the money out of the CBR, to pay for the PFD and give it to the people and let them do it. But the House is not the final stop. And now we're facing even more difficult challenges. And we're going to talk about that today, the drop in the permanent fund value and the price of oil and what we talked about it a little bit yesterday. um the cost of the price of oil and what that effect is that that's going to have on us as well um

And and more. And again, this whole rally at the Anchorage. at this Anchorage Town Hall. More taxes on us, please. We want more taxes. You know, to which I shake my head and go, well, there's nothing stopping you from writing a check and sending it into the state right now. You could send a check to the Department of Revenue.

And say for school funding. And I mean, you could you could do that right now. There's nothing stopping you from funding it. Well, that wouldn't be fair and equitable. OK, well, then what are you talking about? You're okay with taxes, but what about those people who are hanging on by a thread? What about those people who believe that they need some accountability? who need some accountability in the schools to produce a good product before they give them more money.

that they'll at least show a pathway. I'm not saying that they need to turn around the academic achievement scores, you know. Like before they get the money, but you should at least have a plan or at least have some policies in place that kind of fit the metrics of what's going on. But, you know, these people are over there. Tax me harder, daddy. Oh, that's that's what they're doing.

How many people showed up? What did they say? 300 people? I don't know. I mean, a bunch of people showed up at this thing. And they're all in red. So, and I would dare to say that probably the majority of these people are in some way connected to the education industry. So that's kind of a little self-serving in the long run. The people who got up and all the pictures of the people that they're showing in the news articles and everything else.

cory aced you know president of the teachers thing and and then you know high school teachers are out there they got pictures of them screaming into megaphones and everything else, and then legislators taking selfies with all the teachers behind them and everything. It's a little bit of self-serving. It's a little... It's it's a little bit like we need more money for our industry so we don't care who has to pay. And that's kind of what Sarah was saying.

We don't, the legislature made these promises, the majorities in the legislature, because this was their campaign promise, right? This last session. Their campaign promise this last session was, we'll get you a thousand dollar BSA increase and we'll get you defined benefits. We promise a chicken in every pot. Vote for me and we'll give you all the free stuff. And now they're facing the reality of there is not enough money to do all those things. Even after, I had to laugh, even after.

They made up their own fiscal note. for the defined benefits bill, which isn't going anywhere this year. I don't think, I don't think it's going to, they're going to be so absorbed by this education and the budget talks and everything else. I just don't see the, I don't see the defined benefits thing going anywhere. But this is their bed. This is what they promised. And again, a little bit self-serving. And so they get this.

Big, you know, gathering together with all the red shirts, you know, raise the BSA, vote for public education heroes, kids, not cuts. These are all the signs that are going on out there. I mean, you know, do kids not. And then at the end, they're like, you know, we just need more revenue.

Ben Kelly, who is an entrepreneur and a former SpaceX engineer, lives in West Anchorage. I don't know if I'd mentioned SpaceX. I don't know if I'd mentioned that as part of his resume. He might get his car keyed or something. But he said, there's an old adage in business. I don't know if anybody knows it. Revenue fixes everything. And the crowd goes wild.

But see, in business, there are people that you're responsible to. And there are only fixed amounts of revenue. And when you have spending that's out of control, you fix the spending. Revenue fixes everything unless, of course, you're sucking up every bit of available revenue and any new dollar that comes in immediately gets spent out on something else. Revenue doesn't fix it then. And that's where we're at right now. This is not a business type environment.

If this was a business type environment, we would not be eating our seed corn. We would not have spent $14 billion, $16 billion, $18 billion. over the course of five or six years out of our savings account. especially since we're mandated to have $10 billion in there at any given time. And we just, we sucked it dry. We sucked it dry like a Capri Sun. Just suck that thing. Oh, it's all gone. What do I do now?

If I have one more politician come in here and say, well, you know, my solution is resource revenue. Okay, two things wrong with that. First of all, the long tail, right? The long tail. How long is it going to take for resource revenue to hit the state? The earliest that I could think for almost any resource revenue out there is going to be at least three years, really probably five to ten. Right. So that's the first problem when you start flapping your gums about resource revenue.

The second thing is, it doesn't fix the problem. Because they will suck it all up and spend it again. And then these nitwits at the end, Pat Higgins, a member of the Anchorage School Board, excoriated lawmakers for refusing to levy taxes that would allow the state to more easily send the districts the funding that they need. Give us the money. We don't care who gets hurt. Give us the money.

You make the decisions on where the funds are going to come from. You decide the oil taxes. You decide the corporate taxes. I'm willing to pay an income tax. I'm willing to pay a sales tax. Tax me harder, daddy. Why? Because she knows she'll get a commensurate pay raise. I mean, you know, as long as the industry as a whole is taken care of, they're all about that.

An attorney who lives in South Anchorage named Aaron Doherty Lynch said, I demand to be taxed. Tax me now. Pull my hair. Tax me now. It's patriotic to pay taxes. I mean these are the nitwits that are down there screaming for this stuff. They don't realize that the problem is the spending. We can't be all things to all people. We just can't do it. And the bad news keeps coming, right?

I mean, that's the next segment coming up. The permanent fund taking a hit with the stock market. Now, that's luckily on a five-year rolling average, so we won't feel it all in one fell swoop. And as the stock market recovers from this, which it will. We'll see some of that come back. But then we see the oil prices. And President Trump has already said that his goal. is in order to help combat inflation and the cost of living for people, his goal is to see oil prices drop.

So, I mean, and I'm not criticizing, I'm just saying that's his goal. And he's right. Lower oil prices definitely help the common person. But the state of Alaska, I mean, this has always been the dichotomy. This has always been the conundrum in the state of Alaska. is that when oil prices were sky high, the state was doing well and in high cotton, but the citizens would suffer.

because they're heating oil and they're gasoline and everything else. And on the other hand, when oil prices were extremely depressed, The state would struggle and the people were like, man, I could afford to heat my home. I could put gas in my car. I could do those things. That's the problem. And now the president has a stated goal of getting those oil prices down, down, down. Well, it's gonna make it a little difficult. I'll tell you that for nothing. Gonna make it a little difficult.

All right, we got to go. We're going to continue. The Michael Duke Show. Common sense, liberty-based, free-thinking radio. We'll be back with more. Running on 100% pure beard power. Oh, also some coffee. We dip our beard in coffee. Ha, nice beard. The Michael Duke Show. Okay. Alright. Who's your daddy? Uh, we need to make Dukes a t-shirt that says tax me harder, daddy.

whoa md is so angry his camera shifted out of focus from the radiation my guy is close to hitting the hulk smash threshold yeah yeah Randy says, Michael, I thought you wanted people to have a conversation about imposing new taxes. I do. This is part of that conversation, Randy. This is part of that conversation. What do you think would happen, Randy?

Why am I going to engage in Randy today? I don't know. But what do you think would happen, Randy, if we passed a tax tomorrow that raised an additional $200 million in funding for the state? What do you think would happen? Do you think that they would give that money and put it into the PFD? What do you think would happen? I'm just wondering. I'm asking for a friend. Cindy said, the visual I see in my head is inappropriate for radio. pull my hair um all right uh what's

Michael, Miguel says, Mike, it's good to see that blood boiling and thank you for keeping this. It's not good for me, man. It's just, it's so. You'd think that being right would be so vindicating. You're like, oh, I'm right. I was right. See, I did. I predicted it. No, it's not. It's frustrating because none of these people, they're not going to acknowledge that. And they're definitely not going to change their behavior. You know, they're not going to change their behavior.

They're just going to keep doing what they're doing. Kim says, yes, the stock market will come back. And then some CB countries are begging. Talk. It's going to be an amazing year. Read it and weep. Panikins panicking. I heard that yesterday. That was the cut. The president's new word that he made up people who, who. You know, run around and panic. Panikins. Panikins. Melissa is chastising me too far.

I don't think so. Definitely paints a picture, doesn't it? Ted says it wouldn't be enough. We'd still need more. You know, we need more tax money. That's what would happen. Yeah. I mean, that's exactly what's going to go on. The, um... Okay. Passing a state income tax against hardworking Alaskans would damage the purity and validity of our dividend because it would be an income transfer.

What the purity and invalidity of our dividend? You already think it's free money, Randy. You can't talk out of both sides of your mouth. You already say that it's a welfare program and it's free money. It's not their money. It's an income transfer already in your mind. What are you talking about?

You know, if that tax, that $200 million a year, if it just came in, do you think that, forget about the PFD, do you think that they would deposit it into the CBR to bring the CBR up to the $10 billion that it's supposed to have? Is that, do you think it would, you think they would do that?

I mean, this was your argument that you and I got sideways on so many years ago where you're like, well, just give them more money and then they'll get more fiscal discipline by giving them more money. That was your argument. Give them the money they need. They know what they're doing. And they'll learn fiscal discipline if we just keep giving them more money. Chris says the PFD was supposed to be a circuit breaker to prevent the legislature from blowing through the permanent fund earnings. Yes.

To some extent, it's worked. But there you go. Don't blame Melissa, Terry. That was me. I actually said that you probably didn't hear it because I said it quietly. Cause I'm a little fired up. I'm a little fired up about this. Um, If if Alaska passes an additional tax, prepare for mass exodus. Yes, I agree. I think that's exactly what's going to happen. And then, of course, there'll be a smaller pool of people and blah, blah. It's the doom loop.

Public enema number one. Oh, wait, sorry. Enemy. Public enemy number one, which makes more sense. On the other hand, he's a little bit of a pain in the Michael Duke show. Welcome back. Sorry, Naresh just said something in the chat room.

found out that one of the main causes, the reasons of the policy for those watching machines, the metal detectors at the state capitol, to beep you as you come into the legislative building is because a couple or two staffers felt so threatened because of, get this, a couple of colorful homeless that came in for free coffee and hang about. The policy was driven by my feelings are hurt. My feelings are hurt.

Okay. No Chris story today. He called it off like the wuss that he is because he can't drive in traffic and talk on the phone at the same time. Sorry, Chris. I don't know if he's listening or not, but he's probably listening and giving me the finger on the radio. But here we are. Let's get to the big news here. The big news. The big news is, is that the pain for the state is not over. Nope. The permanent fund lost $2.2 billion last week amid all the turmoil on the stock market.

uh because of the tariff issues and everything else and you know the stock market you know going up and down it's crater is pulling back where is it at right now see we'll see what let's see what dredge has to say Trades back gets messy. Wall Street rebound. Okay, so it's going back up. Like I said, stop. This whole thing is built on confidence. I don't know if you know that, but the whole fundamental financial network and everything's built on confidence.

The more you panic and spread that panic, the more likely it is that the confidence will be shaken and yada, yada, yada. Okay. So anyway, the stock market will come back. But for right now, the permanent fund. lost $2.2 billion. By Friday, that's where they were set. Now, the permanent fund itself and the earnings of that provide roughly 60% of the state revenue. It funds both the state services and whatever little PFD they decide to throw our way.

Now the, the director of the permanent fund of people that are like, don't, you know, you know, we're paying attention, but there's no cause for alarm because again. The fund runs on a five-year roll. Remember back in the day? Do you remember back in the good old days when we used to get a dividend that was running according to statute? I remember when. Remember when we had the post-

2005, six, seven years when we had the cratering, when the economy pooped the bed, and all of a sudden our PFDs went down to, I can't remember, I think it was $700 or something. It was down, down, down. And then it was pretty low for three or four years. And then at the end of that five-year swing, all of a sudden, it jumped right back up. Because that's how they work, because it works on a five-year rolling average. Same thing happens with the fund itself, the corpus of the fund.

So it may cause a little bump, but it's nothing to be panicked about. They said that the fund is well diversified and it's able to absorb public equity losses. There's a cause to pay attention, and we are paying attention, but not a cause for alarm, according to Devin Mitchell, the executive director of the PF Corps. But it tells a broader picture. A broader picture is that there may not be enough money in there. If they're going to take the 5% draw, they may be a little short.

Because they have to commit to... They're going to have to commit about $5.5 billion. of money that's what's going to need to be available four billion for state services and the dividend and 1.5 billion to inflation proof the fund now here's the thing. You know what they seem to keep forgetting is that we made these ad hoc transfers into the permanent fund over the last

four years, almost $8 billion in ad hoc transfers into the fund. And when I say ad hoc, I mean that was from the earnings reserve into the corpus of the fund to protect it. Now, there was a couple of reasons that they gave for that. I think one of the hidden reasons.

was to kind of foment the crisis that we're talking about now so they could talk about combining the earnings reserve and the corpus of the fund, creating an artificial crisis because all of a sudden we don't have the money in the earnings. But one of the reasons why they gave for those ad hoc transfers was to future inflation proof the fund. And now they seem to have just forgotten about it.

Oh, well, you know, we've still got $1.5 billion. We've got to inflation-proof the fund. Well, what about the $8 billion that you transferred over the last four years? Can't we count that towards inflation-proofing? Now, the legislatures have occasionally canceled the inflation proofing, and they've done other things like the ad hoc draw. This article doesn't even talk about the ad hoc transfers.

was they want to future-proof the fund. I think it was the word that they used. It was inflation-proofing in the future. But now they're talking about with the $2.2 billion loss, they're worried about it, yada, yada, yada, everything else. But on top of that worry, whether or not there'll be enough money in the earnings reserve for the PFD, for the state draw, for the POMV draw.

which again, look forward to a lot of discussion on why we need to combine the earnings reserve and the permanent fund corpus. Look forward to a lot of discussion on that and look forward for all these nitwits who are going, tax me harder, daddy. Just, you know, those are the same people that would be like, oh yes, we absolutely should combine the two. and give the legislature access to the corpus of the fund because that's going to work out swimmingly. It'll be fine. Don't worry. Keep...

Like, you know, it's like setting up an alcoholic as the night watchman at Jack Daniels distillery. Don't worry, it'll be fine. On top of that, with the market tumbling and everything else, one of President Trump's stated goals, as I mentioned earlier, was he wants to reduce the overall cost of oil. In an effort to try and make the quality of life and cost of living and to help drive down inflation, he wants to keep oil prices low, which is great.

For the country and for us as individuals and everybody else, not so good for the state. Not so good for the state. Just seven days ago, eight days ago. Oil was selling for $78 a barrel. Alaska North Slope Crude, A&M. And it fell down to $67.48 yesterday. That was the low yesterday. Today, I think it's back up to $68. Pretty much close to the same. So oil prices are starting to tumble.

And that is a significant. Now, what's interesting, and none of these articles actually talked about how many, maybe if somebody. Probably Rob Myers knows or maybe in the chat room for every dollar of oil loss. What does that translate to in revenue? Can somebody maybe somebody in the chat room remembers? I know we talked about this. I think Brad went over it and maybe maybe Rob threw it out there at one point. But for every dollar loss in the cost of oil, there is a significant. I want to say.

That can't be right. We're talking millions of dollars. OK, for every dollar lost on the price of oil for A&S, for crude, Alaska crude. it's millions of dollars of revenue that we won't get. Millions of dollars for every dollar per barrel lost. And we're down significantly. So when they planned the budget this last year, the Department of Revenue, based on the most recent forecast, based oil prices at $74.48 for bear. So that's a $6, $7 loss. And I think it's probably going to go even lower.

Because that's the president's stated goal. He's going to do everything within the power of the executive to try and help keep. to try and help keep inflation low and do all that he can do to get to that point. And we're going to see. Last month, according to the ADN, last month, the Alaska Department of Revenue issued its revenue forecast for the next fiscal year.

The Legislative Finance Division estimated that if that forecast were issued Monday, state revenue would likely drop by around $160 million due to the tumbling oil price. So $6, that's what the drop was, was about $6. They lost $160 million over $6 oil prices. So what is that? 25, 26 million. I mean, I can't, I'm a high school graduate, but you know. So what do we say? 160 divided by six, 26, $26 million for every dollar. Just bait rough math. This is rough back of the napkin math. Okay.

$26 million for every dollar lost. What if it drops down into the mid-50s? It was factored at $74.48 a barrel. That's what the DNR forecast was, the latest DNR forecast. What if it just dropped to 54 instead of 74? 54. So what would it be then? Oh, that'd just be another half a billion dollars, 533 million. On top of the shortfall we were already facing.

And again, this is the president's stated goal. He wants to bring the price of oil down for the stability, for the inflation, and for the cost of living for the people. Like I said before, this has always been the conundrum in the state. You know, when the oil prices are high, the state is living in, you know.

You know, the days are here again. They're just they're rolling in the money. The people suffer because now we're paying five, six, seven dollars a gallon for heating fuel and gasoline goes up and everything else. But on the other hand, when. The oil prices are in the doldrums and down in the toilet.

We're happy because now we can afford to heat our homes and put gas in our cars and do everything else. We have a little more money to spread around. And the state's in full-on panic mode trying to figure out how to tax us out of that money so that they can stay afloat. That's part of the problem of being a resource-driven economy. So this is not over, folks. This is not over. It's going to, the uncertainty and the instability is going to continue.

Until we get a legislative body that can figure their stuff out. That's what it's going to take. They're going to have to acknowledge that we just don't have the money. It's just not there. And they've got to quit promising all these things, writing checks that their bodies can't cash. that we have to live within our means, that we're going to have to make some cuts. Now, Sarah Vance said that she believes that the Senate is going to be making some cuts to the dividend.

And to other things, it'll be really interesting to see what comes out of that. But again, I'm not going to hold my breath because that's how you asphyxiate. That's how you die. Because you hold your breath on something that's not going to happen. But yeah, what happens if oil tumbles even more? Ooh, baby. You think it's tough now? Just wait, wait, wait. All right, we got more coming up. We're going to continue the Michael Duke show.

We'll be back with more here in just a moment. Don't go anywhere. We'll return after this on your home for common sense, liberty-based, free-thinking radio. 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 Michael Dukes show.com. Sorry, I had to take care of something there for a second. All right, welcome back. The Michael Duke Show, Common Sense Radio.

Yeah, Parnell always inflated oil prices in his budgets too. Yeah, I mean, I remember. I lost my mind. Parnell was writing budgets based on $105 a barrel of oil, and it had already dropped into the high 70s, low 80s, I-70s. And I'm like, what are you doing? You can't write a... No. Again, that was proof positive to me that this is not a Republican versus Democrat problem. This is a big government versus small government problem.

that's how I felt the whole time. Okay. Um, Going backwards here to see if there's anything else. Fiscal discipline in government, much like working on live high voltage systems in my trade, is something you should not be learning on the job. No, definitely not. Melissa says, Chris needs to learn to multitask. Doesn't he know I'm here for him? Oh, man.

Sourdough Steel said early on, if Alaska passes an additional income tax and prepare for a mass exodus, to which terry or teresa said maybe that's their ultimate goal sourdough and he said could be Don't know what that advantage would be, though. Well, it's an ideological advantage, Sourdough. That's what it is. They want Alaska. In fact, I think it was Rob Myers who said early on here. Let me see if I can find it. Rob Myers.

said something about that, where he basically was saying, here it is, the hardcore Democrats want us to be a part. The permanent fund lets them do it. Ideologically, it matches what they want to do. They want Alaska to be a park. What can I say? Anthony says, well, I could say that I owe Brad Keithley an apology. Here I was thinking he was the source of my ulcer formation on Tuesdays. But look at that.

It's still happening with him not here. It's just the topic of Tuesday that's killing me slowly. You know, I mean, I'm not doing you any favors by getting all jazzed up, right? All right. And Frank is over here trolling Melissa. I'll help Melissa with her Chris Story fix. paying taxes on the money you make, paying taxes on the money you spend, and paying taxes on the things you own that you already pay taxes on with already taxed money. There you go. That'll get you all jazzed up.

Give away our oil, says Harold, and wonder why you're broke. I mean, we're broke because we've spent every available dollar. That's part of the problem right there. It's not just the revenue. Although I agree with you. We're leaving money on the table. We should change that. But, I mean, you know? All right, let me get back down here to where we were. I scrolled way back up. Throw out some baubles at the peasants. Give them a little of what they need.

Rob said what we haven't talked enough about is the relationship between oil and the markets. When America was a net energy importer, lower oil prices meant a stronger economy. hence stronger market returns for the permanent fund now that america is a net exporter loyal lower oil prices mean lower market returns we bet our state on two sources of revenue that tend to rise and fall at the same time. This is that whole command economy and the oil economy that you've talked about. I agree. I agree.

Um, Tiffany Zolkowski quote, we have to take money to save the PFD on a multi-billion dollar transfer from the ERA to, yeah. Yeah. Um. Let's get back to it. Here we go. The Michael Duke Show, common sense, liberty-based, free-thinking. I don't even know what I want to talk about this next segment. You guys tell me what you want me to talk about.

Maybe tell me what you want me to talk about. We've got 20 seconds here. What should the topic be that I cover next? Oh, I know. I'm going to talk about this thing in Anchorage. Nevermind. I know what I'm going to talk about. Here we go. get to it like share subscribe ring the bell do the thingy thingy let's go here we go

The Michael Duke Show. Proudly splitting the left versus right dichotomy. Yeah, I had to look that word up too. I don't think it means what he thinks it means. There he is though. That guy. Michael Dukes. The one with the sh... Kim, don't try and talk common sense. It's not going to happen. The one guy that decries to the heaven how bad Trump is for making the market tanks, and he's out there.

saying been busy as a bee with the markets tanking, buying opportunities on steroids. What did I say the other day? Now's the time to buy. I mean, you know. Oh, it's one of those, one of those things. Um, all right, we're, we're gonna, oh man, it's a conundrum. Uh, I might need to, I might, you know, I might need to start day drinking at this rate.

Uh, all right. Well, let's get off the budget stuff. See if we can pull my, well, this is not going to help my blood pressure at all, but you know, we'll, we'll get to it. Let's get off the blood pressure stuff and, uh, the, the budget stuff. You could tell I'm just, um, The only thing that makes me laugh is the tax me harder daddy thing. But there is a new there's a new move by the Anchorage Assembly just to show how out of touch they are with the rest of the state. They went full.

Los Angeles, they have gone full blue state retardation. I mean, it's just you just you just they're doing it. They're going just fully moronic at every level. Karen Bronga. I don't remember for her. You remember Karen Bronga? She's the one that wore the Handmaiden's Tale costume.

You remember that? Remember that when she was making some protest back in 20, back in the, during the election, she wore the handmaiden's tale costume. Apparently America was going to become the theocracy that, you know, you know, the handmaiden's tale. She actually wore it and sat on the podium, sat on the dais with the rest of the assembly members and did the whole thing. Remember that? Yeah. Well, she has now placed a brand new ordinance.

up it's going to be discussed tonight now normally i would wait till friday to discuss this but since it's going to be discussed tonight and any of you who live in the anchorage area who know what's going on you should be aware that this is what's happening The ordinance would hold parents or guardians criminally liable if a child in their care brings a gun or or other deadly weapon to school grounds or school related events.

This was introduced, they say, as a response to growing concerns over youth access to firearms. This is in Must Read Alaska. You can go over there and take a look at it. The proposal stipulates that liability applies if the weapon was originally in the possession of an adult. Well, I mean, that's very vague. I mean, an adult, if you've got a kid, the adult basically has possession of everything to begin with, even if they buy it and give it to the kid. They had possession.

Critics argue that the broad language potentially extending liability to foster parents, to grandparents, or even to babysitters. I mean, this is literally, that's how broad the language is. Would unfairly penalize adults for actions beyond their control. Now we had this discussion on a firearms Friday, not too long ago when they brought the parents of that kid in. was it michigan i think it was michigan where the parents were actually charged now those parents

They were pieces of crap, right? I mean, this was all discovered. I watched some of the court TV proceedings on that. Just to see what kind of parents, they were not good parents. Okay. I will just put it that. And I think in that case, which was a grievous case, that was a good idea. But we all know. How kids can be. Right?

Kids of parents, families that are goody two-shoes families, sometimes they end up with that wild child who goes out, smokes, drinks, gets pregnant, does the thing, you know, all the drugs. Right. Becomes the bad boy. I mean, all that kind of stuff. We know it happens through no fault necessarily of the parents. I mean, sometimes it's the fall of the parents, but we don't, we know, you know, but from all appearances, like it's all good and they can't control the kid. Right.

So I have a little bit of heartburn with it. Just on the overall part of it. The second part of the ordinance under the consideration would require gun owners to report a lost or stolen firearm to law enforcement within 48 hours of discovering it missing. Now, there are other states that have laws like this, but this goes far beyond

The federal mandate for reporting for licensed firearms dealers, let alone private citizens. Now, I haven't read the full proposed ordinance to see what the to see what the penalties are. But that, I mean, that's a thing. Now, the problem is, is that we have a preemption law in this state. And the preemption law states that no local municipality, no political subdivision of the state, I think is the verbiage.

I helped put that together back in the day. So that's the Firearms Owners Protection Act and everything else. I had Gary Marbutt from the Montana Shooting Citizens Association. He gave me some light. Anyway, I helped put all this together. The preemption law basically says local gun laws cannot be more restrictive than the state law.

And this has worked out very well in various municipalities around the country where you get a really, really ultra blue city in the middle of a kind of purplish state where there's a lot of rural people. And the city decides they're going to, I don't know, ban assault weapons. And the state's like, well, but you can't because there's a preemption law and you can't make a law that is more restrictive than what the state law is. And so they've been shot down.

So the problem that these ordinances face is that they are more restrictive than the state law. That's not going to stop them from trying to pass it. Unless you as citizens get up and go have your say, unless you as citizens stand up at the podium in front of the assembly and say, well, if you bring this. and you pass this, I will go find an attorney and I will make you, I will, I will, you know, this is unconstant. This is not, this is no, no.

What we need is a very pro 2A attorney in this state who would take this on pro bono. That's what we need. Because, see, this is their new tact. Oh, they know it's wrong. They know it's unconstitutional. They know that it flies in the face of the preemption law. They know all that. But see, they'll pass it and then they'll make you go spend all the money to try and fight them on it. This is lawfare. It's a different version of lawfare, but it's lawfare.

Same kind of thing they're doing in places like California, where they know that their safe spaces or whatever is unconstitutional, but they pass it anyway. And then they make you spend all the money to fight it all the way up to the Supreme Court. So this is going to be discussed tonight, 6 p.m. at the Lusak Library in Anchorage.

So hopefully anybody who's listening to this or has friends in Anchorage or whatever, know somebody who's in Wasilla, maybe wants to take the drive in. Maybe you should go in there and make a note. Maybe you should testify on this. Ordinance number AO 2025-25-28. 25 is the hold them accountable for the parents, and the 28 is the reporting of lost or stolen fire. Again, both of these. And what problem are we solving here?

Well, I'm afraid that the thing and the deal, but has it happened? Has there been, I mean, yes, there's been instances of weapons and other things at schools, but what's changed in the last five years? that causes this to be a problem this is just another attack On our right, it's another attack by this liberal assembly, progressive assembly. to try and to garner more power over you and your life. I would never live in Anchorage, ever live in Anchorage.

In fact, I was laughing because when I went to Fairbanks here a few weeks ago, actually, as I was driving into Anchorage, I looked around and thought, God, I hate this place. I mean, I worked there almost every day and I was like, God, I hate this place. This is so frozen.

Anyway, tonight, 6 p.m. Lusak Library, they're going to talk about these two amendments. I mean, again, the gal with the mental illness, the Karen Bronga, who wears the... handmaidens tale garb to the assembly meeting she's the one that brought this up

oof i think that oh i think that pretty much says it all all right we got more coming up tomorrow the michael duke show we're going to be joined by mike cronk in hour two i think we'll stop in hour one but we'll let you know love one another live well i'm gonna go start drinking we'll see you Okay.

Oh, man. It's just... It's, you know, it's crazy. Rick said... you were pretty close to your calculations on the loss of oil revenue five dollar drop per barrel would equal somewhere in the range of 350 to 500 million dollars annually yeah so i was pretty close i was just doing rough calculations based on what the news story said harold said what no i'm a trump supporter he hates war you are Man, why? No way.

Yeah. let's see um I'm just going through here see things cities are a creature of the state the state cannot convey powers it does not have it's a political subdivision right Kevin said a conservative pro bono attorney. Good luck. Well, I know. I mean, I'm, I'm dreaming there. I know, but I mean, it would be nice if we could find a pro, not, not pro, not conservative. I just said pro 2A attorney. hey kid my wife's dog just walked in the room wayne anthony ross that wouldn't be a bad one um

Don't do it. Don't do it, sister. I said I was going to have a drink. Don't do it. I'm not really going to go have a drink unless it's coffee with Bailey's. All right. Well, that does it, my friends. I'm at the end of the conversation. So I'm out of things to say today. Thank you for coming in. I hope you guys enjoyed the show. I'm hoping it wasn't as frustrating for you as it was for me. I hope he got more out of it.

All right. Tomorrow is another day. Again, be kind. Love one another. Live well. The Michael Duke Show. We'll see you tomorrow, my friends. Have a good one. Terrestrial Radio Skin. And now we are slimy lizard internet people. It's the Michael Duke Show.