Tuesday 5/6/25 | Keithley's Truth Top 3 | Story's Uplift & PMA

Welcome to the party pal. The Michael Duke Show. The Greed. Entitlement is astounding to me. What more could you want from a low-budget radio program? This is a dumpster fire. Thank you. It's time to get a new perspective. And we've got just the cure. and prepare for a steaming hot cup of freedom. I just... The Michael Dukes Show, streaming live across the world.

Live around the world on the internet at MichaelDukeShow.com and across the great state of Alaska on this, your favorite radio station and or FM translator. Hello, my friends. Welcome to Tuesday, the truth day, the day that... Somebody said, you ready for all the rage numbers? Yes, it'll be all the numbers that enrage you.

but hopefully motivate you to do more. That's what it's all about today. Truth Tuesday is the weekly top three with Brad Keithley from Alaskans for Sustainable Budgets is about to kick off, and we're about to get into that. We're ready to go. Are you ready? I'm ready. We're going to be joined in Hour 2 by Chris Story as well for a little bit of weekly uplift and positive mental attitudeness.

and more, plus some of my thoughts and everything else, but before we get too far along, let's just dive right into it, shall we? We can't wait. I can't handle the truth. It's what it is. It's Brad Keithley, Alaska's Four Sustainable Budgets, and the weekly top three. Hello, my friend. How are you this morning? I'm doing great. A little bit of Jack Nicholson to get us started today. You can't handle the truth. That's right. You can't handle the truth.

uh anyway we got a lot of stuff to uh cover today brad but yeah we got every day that you don't start with jack nicholson is a bad day let's just say it that way all right let's um Let's get started. We've been talking a lot about it. Like I said before, it seems like the legislature has now just welcome to the party, pal. You're the first person to realize that we're in a deficit. And they're shocked. Shocked, I tell you, that this is actually going on. But the news from oil...

is not good for those who have been planning on a big rosy budget for next year. It's just not as good as they thought it was, right? Give us the news on oil pricing, Brad, what's happening there. It's not only not good, it's getting terrible. I did the futures prices this morning before we started. And the current fiscal year, FY25, that we've got, what, two months left of, a month and a half. left of is going to be okay. The projection on which the budget was based was $75.

The spring revenue forecast brought that down a dollar and said it was going to come in at $74. And factoring in the current futures markets for the remainder of this month and for June, it looks like the average is going to end up around $73. So FY25 is taking a hit, but not that much of a hit. FY26 is just a disaster when you look at it. The forecast, the spring revenue forecast on which this budget was theoretically being built. is $68 a barrel for Alaska crude.

the current futures market and you know some will sometimes argue with me and say well there is no futures market for alaska which is absolutely true but you can take brent which is what Alaska is priced against basically in the world market. You can take Brent and you can adjust it for the Alaska differential. And we keep track of what the differential is between Alaska crude and Brent crude.

on a daily basis and then factor that in in looking at the Brent futures market coming up with an Alaska futures price. And the current market for Alaska futures against a spring revenue forecast of $68. The current futures price from this morning for the Alaska futures is $62. $6 less, and that translates into about a $200 miss. $200 reduction in projected oil revenues for the state. So $200 million, not $200, $200 million, right?

yeah right 200 million i'm sorry that's okay uh 200 million dollars uh lower uh funding for the state so FY26 is just looking horrible. And interesting thing about the current market since this. ride started a couple of months ago. Interesting thing about the current market. Up to a couple of months ago, since COVID, up to a couple of months ago, the oil futures market had been in what is called backwardation.

which means that current prices are higher than futures prices. It was a downward slope. to the market. What's happened in the last four weeks, six weeks, is that the market has gone into this sort of roller coaster. that is in backwardation for the first couple of years and then goes into what's called contango by the futures analysts or the market analysts.

contango which means that futures prices are higher than than current prices so so we're in backwardation for a couple of years and then we start into contango and what that means is beyond FY26, the market sort of comes back up. And if you look at an average of FY27 through FY32, at least in the current futures market, the spring revenue forecast says $67 a barrel and the current futures market.

So $67 a barrel also. So we sort of even out in the future years. But right now, looking at the futures market, FY26 is a disaster. And it's not entirely clear we get out of this anytime soon. What's going on is we started with a soft market because of reduced demand, largely because of the tariff. Um...

as the tariff war started, demand started contracting. And so we've got a soft market to begin with. But what's mostly happened over the last couple of months is that OPEC has... OPEC Plus has vastly increased, the quota has vastly increased production. first in April for May, and now at the most recent meeting, they upped at another 400,000 barrels a day in May for June, which was a surprise to the market. I think the market expected about 100,000 barrels a day increase.

150,000 barrels a day increase and OPEC substantially exceeded that. And there's an increasing expectation that OPEC's going to do the same in June up at another. uh 400 000 in june for for july so which will which will bring prices down even further so it's uh it's not entirely clear what's uh what's gonna change That, I guess, this sort of stops the free fall that we're in.

the opec production increases are in response i mean against a soft market against a soft demand market you wouldn't think that they'd start tightening up but what they've done is they've expanded because they've got a problem with two of their members, Iraq and Kazakhstan, greatly exceeding their OPEC quotas. So this is sort of, you know, if you're going to do that, we're just going to increase the overall quotas and everybody's going to compete.

for that increased market share that you've been filling by over. Right. It's a punishment. It's a punishment more than anything else to try and drive the whole market price down. So sure, you can overproduce, but you're going to make less because we're all going to overproduce at this point.

It's mostly punishment, but it's also a market share battle. I mean, Saudi, so what's happened is we had, in a soft market, Kazakhstan and Iraq were increasing their market share dramatically, which was coming at the expense of Saudi. So Saudi's response was, look, you're not going to be able to play that game. We're going to increase.

the quota so we can compete for that increased market share that you've been that increased share of the market you've been supplying and and in doing that drives price down but it begins with a market share battle that that has the effect on price It's also, the dropping price is also sort of a fortuitous response by the Saudis to requests by the Trump administration to bring price down.

to level off inflation, to keep inflation under control, even with the tariff increases. And Trump's headed over to Saudi for a foreign visit in the next month or so, next few weeks or so. And this gives the Saudis an opportunity to say, see, you know, you ask us about lower prices, look what's happened. We deliver, right, we deliver. So what's the effect on Alaska, though? I mean, this is, you know, again, you know, $68 a barrel is what they factored it on.

61, 60, 59. I mean, we're looking into the high 50s, or what are we thinking? What is it going to mean for Alaska? Yeah, so the Trump administration says they want 50. And so, you know, the Saudis are the current futures prices at 62. The Saudis, if the Saudis increase market increase, the quotas again.

in June by another 400,000, which is what they could do. I mean, what they're really restoring the cuts that happened during COVID. And if they increase it by another 400,000, which the Saudis have the capability of doing. That'll drive it into the 50s for sure. and possibly start approaching the $50 barrel level that the Trump administration has said it wanted. So that just makes FY26 for Alaska. An absolute disaster. And we'll just wreck the budget all the heck.

We don't have enough savings to guide us over. So just really, I mean, FY26 is going to be if the Saudis increase the production again, if the price drives down into the 50s, into the middle and low 50s. It's going to wreck the FY26 budget and start putting future budgets at risk as well, even though we're in contango. If you start from a lower base,

The contango gets you lower levels. I mean, it gets you higher levels than current, but it ends up getting you lower levels. I don't think it'll affect production. I don't think it will affect the incentive.

for projects currently underway like willow and pika they're too far along capex is too far along to really you know stop stop work on those uh it probably will slow down uh any future projects beyond willow and beyond pika that may be in the planning phases or maybe you know in people's minds right It will weight down on those. But I think we'll continue to have production. It's just that the price for that production is just going to be significantly lower than the forecast.

The price on which the budget's based. In dollars and cents, though, you're talking about, I mean, if we end up with a drop, every dollar in drop is what, about $40 million or so? At these levels, about $30 million. $30 million, yeah. at every dollar so if we drop uh you know we drop 10 bucks uh down from from That's the thing. They keep factoring the budget on this higher and higher number 68.

Now we get to 58. If we get to 55, I mean, all of a sudden we're talking about going from potentially a billion dollar deficit to a $2 billion deficit, 1.6, 1.9. What are we talking? We're talking big dollar. Current law deficit counting, starting from the statutory PFD, were easily over $2 billion. Even at $62 a barrel, we may be over $2 billion. I haven't run those numbers yet. I'll run them on Friday. But even at $62, we're probably over.

over $2 billion for FY26 against the current law budget, against the budget factoring in the PFD cut that they're making, against that budget will still be down maybe $400, $500 million. if we get into the mid-50s for FY26. And we've only got like $3 billion in savings. When I say savings, what it really is, is accumulated PFD, overcut. that have happened during the last five years. And the PFD slush fund, right? Only whatever's left of your PFDs is sitting in there at this point.

what, 2.8, 2.9, but they say they have to retain almost a billion dollars for cash flow, so it's not even that. about $2 billion. That's really what's available is just under $2 billion. It makes it even more. And that doesn't even account for the new employee contracts, which are just got signed. We don't even have the full price tag on that yet, but it's upwards of $300 million a year.

in perpetuity going forward. So there's another, I mean, this is, I mean, this just hurts all the way through. It's just, it just keeps getting worse as we go through. Yeah, and in the face of this, Michael, I mean, we'll talk about this more in the second segment, but in the face of this, we keep voting spending increases. I mean, the K-12 spending increase, permanent increase. that the House just passed.

is insane uh in this environment they don't have a way of paying for it they didn't even discuss uh you know, a fiscal plan on how to pay for it. But nevertheless, they voted this permanent increase. And now we're talking about child care. And now we're talking about the, you know, People are pushing for the child care subsidies that are out there. And now we're talking about the increased wage increases. Medicaid, Medicaid, all the other things. I mean, it's just going to be, yeah.

Woo! It's going to be fun. All right, Brad Keithley, Alaskans for Sustainable Budgets. The weekly top three continues. Next. Who wants to be governor? Who wants to be governor of this train wreck? All right, we got more coming up. Don't go anywhere. The Michael Duke Show, Common Sense, Liberty Based, Free Thinking Radio. Number two of the weekly top three. is up next. Don't go anywhere. Back with more. Running on 100%.

beard power. Oh, also some coffee. We dip our beard in coffee. Ha, nice beard. The Michael Duke Show. Okay, we're in the commercial break right now. Brad Keithley, Alaskans for Sustainable Budgets. So first off, we've got to know what your sweatshirt says because everybody's wondering if you're either in prison or going to hunt.

If not for them, and frankly it's a... A project that I've been involved with that that sort of develops a documentary around the history of women's basketball, the early history of women. basketball. We sort of forget it. I mean, everybody talks about Caitlin Clark and all that sort of stuff, but we forget the people who were there back in the 60s and 70s that built the foundation and this documentary.

And the orange, the orange is for, it's the colors of the Women's National Basketball Association. Okay. So it's a documentary built around going through the history of women's basketball. You're a big WNBA fan. I forgot about that. So there you go. All right. So quit giving him a hard time about his blaze orange sweatshirt. They thought you were going hunting or that you were, or you were part of a new movie. The orange is the new black film or something. You know, it's going to be good.

Yeah, Brad, I'm just looking at this and going, it's going to be worse. If Trump gets his way and they get to that $50 mark, which would be good for the overall U.S. economy, don't get me wrong. But for Alaska... If we went from 18 to 50 or 51, 52, that's devastating. It's devastating for what we've got going on right now.

We should have long ago, and I've been an advocate of this since the 20 teens. We haven't talked about it much on the show, but I've written a couple of pieces on it. We should have long ago gone to... a system for the oil revenues we use in our budget based upon the 10-year history. We shouldn't be basing the oil revenues that we use in the budget on what we have, the surplus we may have built up by using a 10-year.

10-year forecast or a 10-year history. But we haven't done that. I mean, we're just riding the curve as it goes. And we're about to see, you know, just start riding the roller coaster. It goes up and goes down. And we're about to see the down consequence of this. Again, I mean, we've been through it before. We've never been through it. We've never been through it with savings this low before, so it'll be a new thrill to go down through it in this situation.

But we're about to go through the down dive again. And if it gets down to 50, if all gets down in the $50 range, Trump's going to want to keep it there. I mean, because the deflationary effect. of getting oil prices down that low is going to be offsetting the inflationary effect. of the tariffs. And he's going to want to keep that deflationary pressure there to offset what's going on with the tariffs to continue to justify the tariff policy. and so he's going to want to keep it there

And the Saudis, if the Saudis regain market share, Saudis have a lot of capacity for absorbing low prices. And so the Saudis may. go there for a while so it'll be it once we get down there there's going to be a lot of pressure to keep it there and if it stays there Alaska is just going to take one hit after another in terms of revenue and in terms of the budget.

I hate to say this, but maybe that's what we need. Maybe we need that wake-up call. Maybe we need the call to say, hey, look, you can't be all things to all people. And, you know, two or three years of oil at... you know, at $50 a barrel in the 50s. Maybe that will be the wake up call that's required. I don't know. It just seems like they just discovered recently that we have a deficit problem. And now it'll be like, woof, you know, now we'll see where it goes from there.

Yeah, and you said, who wants to be governor of this? Well, we already have two candidates that announced yesterday, neither of whom put out this long release about you know, all the stuff he's concerned about. Fiscal policy wasn't one of them. Oh, no. The budget wasn't one of them. So neither of them are ready for this. Yeah, no, it's...

Yeah, I'm not encouraged. Well, to be honest with you, I'm not encouraged by any... the potential candidates that have been mentioned so far, including we've got Nancy Dahlstrom, and then Adam Crum, and then Treg Taylor, and then Click Bishop, and Mary Peltola, and now Bernadette Wilson's the only one that sounds like she may even be.

semi, you know, cognizant of this. But again, I want to know more before I go. But there's really, it has not been an inspiring field thus far about all the names that have been mentioned, but we'll see where it goes from here. All right. Yeah, I'm holding that from Ben. to tell you the truth. That would be pretty awesome. Alright, we gotta go. The Michael Duke Show, Common Sense Radio. Public enema number one. Oh wait, sorry. Ah, 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. I resent that remark. All right, we got to go. We're drawn to number two here of the weekly top three. Brad Keithley, Alaskans for Sustainable Budget. the basic question of the week is, you know, what is the basic question on HB57? What is the question that we should all be, we all know it, right? It's the question we should all be asking all the time.

Who pays? Brad, HB57, you're an analysis, an analysis of this debacle here. So HB 57, for those who are numbers challenged, HB 57 is the K-12 bill, the $750 K-12, or 700, which was it? 700? The $700 K-12 bill. Yeah, 700, yeah. Yeah, that got through the legislature, got through the Senate, got through the House, and currently is sitting on the... on the governor's desk. If there's one thing, Michael, that we did over the course of the last two years or the course of the last three years,

As long as people have been writing these op-eds about we need increased K-12 funding, we need more funding in the schools, we need to spend more in the schools. There's one thing we talked about on this show. One thing I wrote about elsewhere repeatedly was, okay, if we're going to address increased spending, we have to talk about who pays. We have to talk about broadly distributing the burden. of any such increase.

especially if they're going to do it on a permanent basis. We have to address who pays. It has to be... hand in glove. And we criticize liberal op-ed after liberal op-ed after liberal op-ed. for not addressing the issue of who pays, not talking about how they were going to make sure the burden wasn't entirely focused on middle and lower income Alaska families.

through PFD cuts so we get to we get to the vote on HB 57 and we have a bunch of conservatives vote for it and they don't they don't talk about who pays And they don't care. It's a permanent increase, and they're voting for a permanent increase in the BSA, a permanent increase in K-12 spending, permanent increase.

taking it out of the discussion for the future and offset. If you're going to vote for increased spending, you have to vote for increased revenues. Are you ready to do that? And are we going to spread those revenues broadly? Taking it out of that discussion voted for a permanent increase and they don't address who pays. Rob Yunt had an op-ed in the last week trying to explain what the hell he was doing and the headline of it was how a common sense education package

passed the Alaska legislature. The only time he really talks about fiscal policy in that op-ed The fiscal consequences. of what he voted for is when he's talking about that little piece that he added on to fund some additional spending. funded by the internet tax, the corporate tax on internet sales in the state that has been passed by the Senate and sitting over in the House. And Rob voted for additional spending on top of what was already being proposed.

And HB 57 proposed additional spending funded by that internet tax, $60 million of internet tax. And all he talks about in his op-ed. is that he was responsible fiscally because he added in that additional spending. additional revenue to support it. But he doesn't talk about the baseline $700 increase, permanent increase. that he voted for. He doesn't talk about how he's going to pay for that and why that was fiscally responsible. The thing that really surprised me is

Sarah Vance and Ruffridge and Bill Elam voting for HB 57. And then they came out afterwards. with an op-ed or with a release. that justified their votes for it. And... One of the things they said in here, in this explanation, is, quote, education funding is the single biggest issue before the legislature this year. said representative vance we had a choice make real progress now or risk walking away with nothing i chose progress education funding

Isn't the single biggest issue before the legislature, as we just discussed in the last segment, especially with oil prices dropping. Fiscal policy is the biggest issue facing the legislature. And what we've got again, what those op-eds try to do the last three years is they tried to say, I forget about fiscal policy. We just need to focus on education policy and we need to fund it no matter what.

and build additional spending no matter what. And what our response was the last three years is, no, it needs to be fiscally responsible. Education policy, you need to pay for it. If you want to increase it, you need to pay for it. And now we've got Vance and Ruffridge and Elam falling in the same trap. Saying, oh, it's education policy. We got to do education policy. without addressing the fiscal consequences, at least on the baseline portion.

of the increased funding. I mean, look, I could have stood behind it if it was a one-time thing just to get it off the table. but it's not. It puts it in perpetuity. And the second thing is you can already see them gearing up for next session. They're already saying this is a good start, essentially. The Anchorage School District Superintendent said, well, this is just to hold us over until next year, essentially. This is going to be a whole new deal. They've seen that you've blinked.

and that you've given in and so they'll be back next year for another $1,000. We get into these traps. We get into these traps where something is going to cause an increase in spending. becomes more important. The policy of pursuing it becomes more important than the fundamental fiscal policy of how you pay for it and how you pay for it equitably.

Education policy, I mean, Representative Vance has fallen into that trap with the statement that education funding is the single biggest issue before the legislature this year. We got another trap coming up in the 15 days or however few days, 14, 10 days, whatever it is. left in the session, got another trap coming up.

in terms of childcare. I mean, people are going around, oh, we've got to fund childcare. We've got a crisis in childcare. We've had all these, you know, childcare facilities closed. We've got to increase the subsidies or make permanent. the subsidies we've got in the legislature for child care. How do you pay for that? How do you pay for that equitably? It isn't just middle and lower income Alaska families that are getting the benefit of that. Top 20% are taking advantage of that too.

How do we fund that equitably? If you want to increase the spending, how do we fund that? But there's no discussion about how to fund. It's just we need that additional spending. And we get into these traps of where the policy around the spending is what drives the boat as opposed to the fiscal policy of how do we pay for it. If you're going to do it, how do you pay for it responsibly?

And I'm just, I'm shocked, frankly, that conservatives are now falling into the trap. It's like they're falling over the edge of the cliff, right? Into the, into the, into the gorge. To see that from Representative Vance was just shocking. To see the vote, first of all, and then to see this statement from Representative Vance is just shocking.

At least Yacht tried to explain part of it. I said, you know, he voted for that increased increment because he had funding behind it. Didn't explain the rest of it.

But at least he explained that increment. Representative Vance and Refrage and Elam don't explain that at all. I mean, it's just... it's just we need education policies first we gotta we gotta deal with education funding fiscal policy oh we'll get to it someday but right education policy we gotta deal with it first yeah well putting 200 million dollars on the bottom line

forever moving forward to me was, I mean, as important as education may be, and even assuming all their arguments were correct, putting $200 million permanently on the book In perpetuity, $175 million, whatever it is. Okay, I'm rounding up. That's just... It's reckless. I mean, it really is just reckless at that point. Because again, if you can't pay for it this year, how are you going to pay for it next year or the year after that? Especially if oil continues to tank. I mean, it's... It's...

It's insane. It's madness. Well, it's 182 million. Whoever wanted to be picky about it forgot to include people transportation, which also was permanent.

was permanently increased so yeah how do you i mean so i'd sort of resign myself to another one year one year you know funding as we continue the debate that needs to go in parallel we want to increase spending okay how do you pay for it responsibly how do you pay for it I'd sort of said, okay, another year of that, another temporary fix of permanent fund cut, PPFD cut.

to pay for it but at least we preserve the debate going forward the parallelism of the debate going forward this takes away the parallelism it says says we're going to permanently increase spending without addressing funding And so the implication of that is.

We don't know how we're going to fund it. It's probably going to be from PFD cuts on the long term, but we're not going to say that, and we're not going to fix that, and we're not going to address the issues that that raises in terms of outmigration and other things. We're just going to increase the spending size. And I've gotten used to progressives and moderate. so-called moderates in the legislature who claim to be fiscal conservatives but aren't i've sort of gotten used to

them going down this one-way track of increasing spending permanently without addressing the fiscal side. But to have Vance and Ruffridge and Elam do it was just... I mean, I don't know where we go. If you can't hold the conservatives on that issue. Will you ever hold on anything? Right, right. Well, it's the same thing with, I mean, in the first go-around, the only person who voted against it in the Senate is Rob Myers, who's like...

Hello? Has anybody seen the fiscal outlook? Right? I mean, even Shower and Hughes and everybody, and then even when it came back and Shower and Hughes voted against it, you've still got Kronk and Young. and Rauscher are all saying, oh no, we're going to override the governor's veto on this. Well, I mean, I asked Mike Cronk on this program, why are you, if you're going to support it, would you support it as a permanent or not? And he was like, yes. And I'm like, okay, come on.

take a stand, right? Can we really afford this in perpetuity? Nobody's even really thinking about that. Yeah. We get into these cycles where we talk about policy and we get focused on some policy, child care policy, education policy, some policy. We get focused on that policy. that has huge fiscal implications. But we get focused on that policy and we have to address that policy. I mean, again, Vance, education funding is the single biggest issue for the legislature this year. No, it's not.

But you get focused in on that and you say, oh, that's the thing we got to focus on. And everything else is secondary to that, including how you pay for it. And so we end up in these situations where we increase the spending on a permanent basis. And we don't have the dollars sitting there. We don't have a way of paying for it other than taking even more out of the pockets of middle and lower income Alaska families.

through pfd cuts even though the top 20 are benefiting from it as well right we're taking more out of the pockets of middle and lower income alaska families to pay for it so it's it's just hugely disappointing and hugely discour discouraging

in terms of where we're going on fiscal policy. I'm concerned we're going to see the same thing on the child care side. What fiscal policy? I mean, that's the thing. The fiscal policy seems to be spend whatever you need. It'll always be there. Don't worry about it. Nothing to see here. Move along. I mean, that really is the, I think Anthony said something about.

We can't fund anything. Alaska is literally getting those scam credit cards activated to pay off the other four credit cards that they maxed out. We're all in a death jungle with chainsaws flying in the air and the government keeps adding more and bigger chainsaws to the mix.

I mean, that's where we're at. It's just like we just keep going more and more and more with no end in sight, no thought of how, I mean, when the music finally stops, will there even be one chair left in the room when the music stops is my question at this moment. We're going to find out next year. If oil keeps dropping, we're going to find out next year if there's even one chair.

one chair left in the room yeah and it's not i mean this was done in the context of the oil drops this is done in the context of stedman and others saying we got a fiscal even stedman and others saying we've got a fiscal problem. This was done in the context of that. Oh, no. Yeah, I understand. Yeah, whatever. Ironic. But education funding is the most important. We've got to vote this permanent increase. Ironic. Because that's whatever.

Ironically, Stedman had this really great speech on the floor the week before. And I think some of the rhetoric that we've had for the last two months is numbing people's minds on how big a billion dollars. You know, they act like we've got a billion and a half underfunded. It's no big thing. Or we're a billion or 500 million. That is a pile of money. And when we look at adding another hundred million or so cut out of our operations, we put it in today, we take it out tomorrow.

in the finance committee and other areas we don't have any choice you know it's not a matter of what we want to do it's what we have to do so he says that the week before which i'm like wow i mean he and i are i can't believe it he's And then the next week he votes for the $700 million permanent increase, $180-something million bucks. a year moving forward so it's everybody is they're they're schizophrenic in the legislature as far as that goes as far as policy

I think Anthony's right. I think Anthony is. It's a scam credit card that you're going to pay off all the other credit cards with. It's just we don't have at the core. We don't have good solid fiscal conservatives, except for maybe Rob. We don't have good solid fiscal conservatives that think about dollars and cents first, how you're going to pay for this stuff. before you vote for additional spending.

And people that we thought were on the house side that were turned out not to be not. Yeah. Well, surprise, surprise, surprise. All right. We're going to continue on. Number three of the weekly top three continues when we get back. What could make this even... Nothing could make this worse, right? Nothing could make this worse. Oh, just you wait, my... Just you wait. All right, we got to go. The Michael Duke Show. If you missed the show, you can listen to it on your time with Duke's On Demand.

Oh, and it's... America used to be. Streaming live every weekly morning on Facebook. michaeldukeshow.com Yeah, maybe Brad or I should write an opinion piece. This is when the music stops. Will there be any chairs in the room when the music stops? No, we'll all be sprawled on the floor. Brian says the chairs will all be in the pawn shop and the wooden ones will be heating people's homes. That's pretty much it.

There won't be any chairs. We rented all the chairs from the wedding caterer, and now they're all been repossessed and gone. That's the thing. That's the thing, you know. And, yeah, where's Donna Ardwin when we missed her? I mean, she told us years ago that this was coming down. She tried to get it fixed, but. Nobody wanted to face reality back in 2018-2019. Nobody wanted to look at it. We're too big to fail, Brad. Too big to fail.

Well, I mean, the thing that everybody has thought about or has justified their actions on. at least the progressives and the so-called moderates have justified their actions on through the years is, but we've always got the PFD. We can always take the PFD. We can always tax the PFD. to pay for it, to cover ourselves. And that's essentially what Vance and Ruffridge and Elam have done.

in their action without having a fiscal plan on how you pay for this permanent increase in spending you just voted for. They're essentially saying, you know, we're going to rely on this hidden account, the PFD account that we can just tag. because it has to go through our fingers on its way to Alaska citizens.

we're going to rely on it to tax it. Well, we're about running out of that. Right. Well, when that's gone, what do you do then? Because you can take all of the PFD next year and we'll still be underwater. I mean, I just, you know, what are you going to do then?

Yeah, so it's so it's I mean, I just can't understand how you don't have... a speech on the floor by those voting for it or you know those trying to explain why they're voting for it conservative so-called fiscal conservatives trying to explain why they're voting for it i don't understand how you don't have a speech on the floor that says, I would vote for this. I agree it's good policy. I agree we're making good decisions here. I agree that this is what K-12 needs.

But I can't vote for it until we have a plan of how we're going to pay for it. until we have a plan not just this but the whole the whole bundle until we have a plan to pay for it i'll do it i'll vote for it i'm ready for it but we've got to have a plan on how we're going to pay for it first i can't believe we didn't have a speech on the floor in the course of this. I mean, this was the perfect opportunity for it.

if sarah says if sarah van says this is good policy we need to pursue it great you're prepared to vote for it but at least say that we need to have a plan about how we're going to pay for it other than PFD cuts. We need to have a plan about how we're going to pay for it.

before we start before we start going down that road and you know just no i'm click click yes i'm ready to i'm ready to go there now even though i don't have a plan to pay for it and even though the bottom's falling out in one of our major revenue sources. So, the one thing, I mentioned it earlier, but we haven't gotten the full price tag yet. It came out yesterday that the... that the employee contracts were done, were signed, right? They'd come to an agreement. An 11% increase

in a pay bump, 11% pay bump. But the pay bump is not the big thing. The big thing is the medical cost increase. because it went from paying $12.50 per employee to now, depending on the plan, anywhere from $180 to over $500 per employee per month. on healthcare. so an 11 increase in pay and upwards of a 500 increase in benefit payments on top of that

I mean, I haven't seen the full price tag. Nobody was really reporting on what the full price tag was, but it's got to be the high end of that $300 million range. Yeah, we've both seen estimates of between $200 and $300 million, so it's got to be somewhere in there. And they've already, I mean, so the PFD...

The most recent PFD cut from $1,400 down to $1,000 was supposed to create a cushion that would incorporate that increased spending plus you know the permanent increase in k-12 spending plus whatever additional spending anybody can sneak in the door like child care subsidies sneak in the door before the end of the session but with oil cratering the way it's doing I'm not sure that $1,000 is sacred.

At this point, I'm not sure it creates enough cushion to be able to absorb that increased spending, the increase in spending on salaries and health care. plus all the other increased spending that we're layering on top of that. So I'm not going to be hugely shocked.

If somewhere along the way, somebody says, well, maybe we need to take another couple hundred bucks out of the PF data to make sure all this balances out at some point. Yeah. Well, we'll have to see. I'm sorry, it wasn't 500. It was 300.

It was from $12.50 to $300 for the current contract and the new contract. We'll get into that more in an hour or two, I'm sure. But yeah, this is... end well that's all i'm saying it's not not gonna end well all right let's get back to it here we go the michael duke show The Michael Duke Show. Not your daddy. Wait, sorry. Not your daddy. Oh, not your daddy's talk. I was scared for a second. Thought we were going down. The weekly top three content.

I mean, after all that doom and gloom, you'd think, oh man, this is bad. It couldn't possibly get worse. And then somebody in the legislature said, hold my beer. And they produced SJR 14. Brad, it couldn't possibly get worse, right? Right? Right? Yeah. Right? No, it could get worse. It could get worse. So here's the one thing that's sort of hovering out there that I'm really concerned about in these closing days. SJR 14 is a proposed constitutional amendment.

that would, as we've talked about on the show previously, open a back door into the Permanent Fund Corporation. It would read state. the constitutional provision around the permanent fund from saying you cannot spend from the corpus, period. End of statement, end of discussion, end of anything. You cannot spend from the corpus. to a constitutional provision that would merge the corpus and the earnings reserve together.

and essentially say you can spend 5% of the average value over the previous five years. You can spend 5%. This is the thing it doesn't say, but that it would permit regardless of whether actual earnings equal 5% or not. Essentially, it opens the ability of the legislature to keep going at 5% draws from the permanent fund, even if the permanent fund is only earning 4% or 3% or 2%. And people quickly say, oh, but the permanent fund's always going to earn 5%. Well, over inflation.

And the response to this, well, it hasn't in five of the last six years. It hasn't earned 5% over inflation in five of the last six years. So yeah, there's a reasonable expectation that it may not be able to do that on an ongoing basis. And if it doesn't do that, on an ongoing basis what the proposed constitutional amendment does to say fine you can just take the difference whatever the difference is

You can take the difference from the corpus and just start draining down the corpus to continue supporting this 5% draw that the constitutional provision would set up. That, opening a back door to the corpus like that. just is it I mean we've gone through the SBR we've gone through the CBR we're going through the permanent fund dividend And now it would open a back door into the corpus and just keep this show going on and on and on. In addition...

it would negate the incentive for the Permanent Fund Corporation to get its act together. The Permanent Fund Corporation has two very real problems. that are going on right now. One is spending way the hell too much. on management fees and other things that it's doing to justifying its investment program.

management fees and consulting fees. It's spending way the hell too much. It's spending a percent of the permanent fund on that thing when other Similar agencies are spending much, much less than that, spending a billion dollars a year on. So that's one problem is spending way too much. And the second problem is it's not earning enough. The way its investment portfolio is, it's earning less than 5% in the last six years.

5% over inflation is earning less than that five in the last six years, while the S&P, just to use one measure, alternative measure, has been skyrocketing. leveling off now, but it's been skyrocketing the last few years why the permanent fund's been just sort of loping along, earning less than 5% above inflation. Those are two serious problems facing the permanent fund. If we would adopt SJR 14 and allow a backdoor into the corpus, Permanent Fund Corporation doesn't care about that.

Because it will always deliver the 5% to the legislature and the legislature doesn't care about it because they're always always getting 5% regardless of what the permanent fund spending and Regardless of what it's earning. So there's no incentive It releases the incentives on the Permanent Fund Corporation to get its act together on those two very important things. So SJR 14 to me is just a disaster, another disaster.

to our fiscal house that would be set up by its passage. It's been hovering in the background in Senate Finance. They brought it up a couple of times. They haven't passed it out yet. They haven't moved to pass it out yet. Hopefully because it doesn't have the vote. But it hasn't passed out yet, but it's sitting there. And Bert's been a big supporter of it because he sees what it would do. It would ensure this 5% going forward, regardless of what the permanent fund was actually doing.

And so Burt's been a big supporter. And my concern is in these final days, as everything is confused, as everybody's trying to get done, that they move it. It gets through the Senate and the House goes, oh yeah. The House sets up and adopts it as well. Governor can't veto a constitutional amendment, so all it takes is passing the Senate.

requires a supermajority in each body but all it takes is passing the senate pass passing the house and it goes goes to the people and i'm concerned that it's sitting out there and doing it so can it get worse yes They can bring up SJR 14 and try to move it out. Yeah. Well, and it is, Frank says, it's a resolution. It has no standing. You don't understand. It's a resolution on a constitutional amendment. So it has standing in the fact that if it does pass, it will go to a vote of the people.

And I guarantee you there'd be plenty of big entities out there who are just living on the government lucre who would spend, I mean, what did GCI spend that one year? $2 million, $3 million? on trying to take your PFD. When SB26 was going through, they spent millions of dollars to get it passed because they knew it would take money out of the PFD. So there would be a huge push to get that path.

Even though, again, this is essentially eating the seed corn, right? Because if we haven't made our 5%, we're still going to draw. All it does is reduce the earning power of the fund so the next year they make even less. And then that just continues every year. They keep taking their 5% and it just keeps earning less because now there's less investment money and it's over. It's over at that point. That's the beginning of the downhill slide.

Yeah, I want to be clear. It is SJR, it is resolution, but it does have absolute effect in that it sets up A vote, if passed, by the supermajorities in the Senate and the House. If passed, it sets up a constitutional amendment vote. And then it's a vote of the people. And there is. There's going to be a huge amount of money.

Michael's exactly right. GCI is going to be behind it. The oil companies are going to be behind it. People are going to be behind it who want to spend more, want to ensure that that revenue stream continues. that regardless of how screwed up the Permanent Fund Corporation becomes, that revenue stream continues.

And people are going to want it to make sure that, oh, we're not going to be talking about taxes on them because we're going to have this other revenue stream coming in that's going to be supplying revenue to the state, to the legislature, regardless. of what's going on over the Permanent Fund Corporation. There will be a lot of money behind it. And so it's Mike, it is a serious concern that it may be brought up in the last days. And push.

Brad Keithley, Alaskans for Sustainable Budgets. Brad, thanks for coming on board this morning and joining us as always. It was educational. Thank you for showing up. Michael, thanks for having me. All right, folks. We've got to go. Hour two is dead ahead. The pay raise. We're going to talk about that up next as well. Yeah, this would just be insult to injury. If something like this passed, now Rob says they won't pass SJR 14 until next year. It'll pass the Senate.

It probably doesn't have the votes to pass the House. I mean, passing the Senate, though, it requires a supermajority, which is what, 30, or 17? 17? Is that what it is? 17 of 20 to get the two-thirds? I mean, 17 of 20 to get out of the Senate, I mean. I just... I mean, really? Would all these Republicans vote for this? Would, you know, Kronk and Rauscher and Yunt, I guess, maybe? I can't see...

Two-thirds isn't 17. Two-thirds is three-quarters. Oh, a three-quarter. Okay, so three-quarters. So 15. They got 15 to get... Is it a three-quarters vote or is it two-thirds vote? It's a three-quarters vote, isn't it, for the... It's a high threshold. 14 in the Senate, 27 in the House. Thank you, Rob, for getting me squared away there. I mean, I just can't believe that people would be all excited about this not looking at...

Just the simple aspect of if you start sucking into the corpus of the fund, you're immediately reducing the investment opportunity. And it'll just be, especially Bert Stedman, who's always been going on and about stability and all this kind of stuff. Why would you allow them to cut into the corpus of the fund?

Well, I mean, Bert's answer to that is it is stability. It's always going to be 5%. We can count on that 5%. Maybe 5% of a declining number, but it's always going to be 5%. He's going to claim that is. that is stability to me as important as breaking into the corpus, as opening a back door into the corpus is.

eliminating those incentives on the Permanent Fund Corporation to reduce costs, keep costs down, and to have a strong earnings stream, eliminating those incentives. Because... it will always be five percent doesn't matter what we spend doesn't matter what our earnings are it'll always be five percent

eliminating those incentives or even more. Now, the Permanent Fund Corporation is going to tell you, oh, we always do that. We always minimize costs. We always pursue strong returns. Well, just look at the last five years. You haven't. you've allowed cost to escalate dramatically And you've allowed returns to deteriorate dramatically compared to the S&P 500 or compared to other index measures.

And you've allowed that to go on. So no, I mean, you can claim that, but you haven't performed that way. This creates maintaining the current to account creates an absolute incentive to do that, creates an absolute incentive to minimize costs and to maximize or optimize return. Eliminating that, that SJR 14 would do, consolidating the two together eliminates those incentives. And that to me is as important.

Because incentives matter a lot. That to me is as important as creating a backdoor into the corporate. Yep, it's... It could get worse. I mean, you're proving it right there. It's a big thing. All right, well, Brad, there's a lot to unpack here. There's a lot to unpack. We still haven't finished fighting the child care fight. We still haven't finished fighting the Medicaid fight. Now we've got the employee cost fight. Now we've got all this other kind of stuff.

Um, any, any care to care to run me a, you know, hold the envelope to your forehead and run me a Kreskin projection here on, uh, on what you think the deficit's going to be this next year. You know, $2.5 billion is not out against current law, against the current law budget, counting the PFD at statutory law. $2.5 billion is not out of the question. A deficit that is half. 50% of spending is deficit.

is not out of the question given where oil prices are going and given the way our budget is structured. It might be record-breaking. That might be a record deficit. But a 50%, a budget that's only 50% paid for. the other 50% of which has to come out of the meager reserves we continue to have, plus huge PFD cuts. A budget that's funded 50% by that is not out of the question. I mean, we're already at 30% out of 30% deficit financed budget.

So oil prices diving down would get us fairly easily to a 50% deficit finance budget. And we can't print money, and we can't borrow to do it, and we've only got $2 billion in spendable, just under $2 billion in spendable in the CBR. in our savings account, quote-unquote savings account, which is supposed to have $10 billion in it, right, constitutionally. 12 or 15, something like that. Yeah, something like that. I mean, I think the minimum is supposed to be 10. And...

there you go. That's, uh, man, next year's gonna be fun. It's going to be fun around here, Brad. And we've got people who are voting for things. It shocks me. People who are voting for permanent spending increases. the face of all that without saying i'll vote for it if you tell me how we're going to pay for it without saying that just voting for the increase because it's good policy Man. Fiscal conservatives we don't really have. I mean, they may claim to be, but...

But they don't think that way. They think about other things. They prioritize other things. Well, it gets to the realm of emotion because they've got people banging on their door about, my kids are going to die if you don't take care of them and everything. And, you know, I mean, Shelly Hughes did have a good article in her blog yesterday or day before. There was an article about...

You know, the Anchorage School District actually is still sitting on a big chunk of the money that they got last year and they were holding it over. That's what they said in one of their fiscal reports. But on the other fiscal reports said that they haven't spent any of it. And then the third fiscal report said they spent only a portion of it.

So it's all shell games at this point, and yet they're genning up all the people with, we're going to cut 300 teaching positions, not telling you that 180 or 200 of them are not even filled. Right. I mean, so it's all at this point, it's all theater to get more money out of everybody. That's what it's all about. And they're buying it. They're buying into it. And again, not asking the question of how do we pay for it all?

That's the problem. All right, Brad, we got to go. Thanks. Thanks for having me, Michael. 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... Welcome to the party pal. Thumb-thumb, Michael D- 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. Not just me. Time to get a new perspective.

And we've got just the cure. Open wide. Prepare for sleep. 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 stations. and or FM translators. Hello, my friends. Welcome to hour two of the big radio broadcast. We just finished up there at the very last second with Brad Keithley from Alaskans for Sustainable Budgets.

I mean, just when you thought it couldn't get any worse. Brad brings up the big elephant in the room that's going to just trample over everybody. You know, it's just, it's astonishing. I want to talk a little bit here about... Well, several things. I guess we'll finish. I guess we'll recap just a couple of my thoughts on what Brad is talking about here. HB 57, the school funding, the $700 permanent increase. is... It's so disappointing.

It's so disappointing. And I said this last week when it passed. that I just, I couldn't wrap my brain around why some of the people voted for it the way they did. And, you know, we even had, again, we had Sarah Vance down here, and she was She had her little Capital Minute piece talking about why she voted for it and everything else. But again, it still didn't answer the question of how do we pay for $180 million, $184 million increase.

that goes forward every year from now until the end of time. I mean, from now until the heat death of the universe, we are forced to pay this fee and we know it's not the end We know that this is just the beginning. Now that they've blinked, Now that they have capitulated and given in to the powers that be, you know they're coming back next year for more.

I mean, the superintendent of schools in Anchorage said it. I mean, this will hold us over, but next year, we're going to come back next year. We still need that $1,000 more. They wanted the $1,800 BSA to begin with, remember? Remember 1808? It was 1963 to begin with, and then it was 1808. They got the 700, and now they're coming back for $1,100 more next year. All of it inside the formula.

And then to go back to Brad's number one piece, which was talking about the price of oil, if things continue and we see oil dump down into the $50 range, again, they factored the budget on $68 a barrel. And right now, it's at 62. 61, 62. Could go down to 55. Could go all the way down, if the president gets his way, down to 50. And then what do we do?

We've just, well, we've just encumbered ourselves with another, you know, so how do we pay for it? We're talking about potentially a $2 billion deficit for next year. which would require all of the money that's available in the CBR, the Constitutional Budget Reserve, our savings account. That's pretty much all of the spendable. There's only $2.8 billion in there. And they said they need to retain about a billion dollars or so for cash flow.

So that's only $2 billion available for spending. So that would consume all of the available money in our savings account. And even if they zeroed out the permanent fund, it would only leave half a billion dollars or so in available monies to shore up anything else. And that's assuming, of course, that there's no additional spends on top of what we have right now. And we still don't know.

what the total price tag is going to be on the new employee contract. It's just out. The employee contract's just out. We're gonna get into that here in a second. But that only leaves one real avenue for the legislature to go down. that only leaves one real avenue if nothing else changed if we just locked the budget in here where it's at and ratcheted it up $2 billion next year.

It doesn't get much better in the year after that. And because of the inflationary factors and the formulaic increases that are in the budget, it'll go up another $150 million the following year. It leaves them. It leaves them with no other option on the table. other than to come back to the state of Alaska, come back to the people of the state of Alaska, and say,

Oh, Buttercup, it's time for you to invest in the state. Free rides die hard. Now it's time for you to pay your fair share. But we don't yet live in a world where the Alaska people... are ready for themselves to invest in their state government. That's right. We're just not quite ready, but we will be next year. We will be.

there's already a group of people out there who are like pull my hair and tax me harder daddy that's right that's what they're doing they're already saying it Tax me harder, Daddy! That's what they want. They're going to tax you.

they're going to tax me they're going to tax every person in this state i mean on top of the fact that they are going to take all of the pfd there will be no pfd they will have taxed every eligible man woman and child in this state And then they're going to tax you harder. That's what's going to happen. I mean, it's coming. That is inevitable at this point.

and all those all those guys out there all those republicans who have said well we're just no taxes no well you know what your your whole no tax argument would have been the whole no tax argument would have been so much more persuasive if you had stood up and stopped the spending. That's the thing.

If all these people who are like, no taxes, I'm taking a stand. No taxes and no new, I'm not doing, no, we're not going to do any of it. No new taxes, except for resource revenues. We'll do that. But no new taxes on anything else. It would have been so much more persuasive, so much more believable if they had then stood up and said, well, we can't increase this.

No, I mean, that's, you know, that would have been, if they had stood up and said, we can't afford that. As much as we'd like to have it, we can't afford it. It's, you know. I mean, it's amazing. Next year, is going to be a hot chocolate colored mess. It is going to be an absolute poop parade. I cannot, I cannot imagine. what it's going to look like when they pull that, and what is the governor's budget even going to look like. He had a budget this year.

that he submitted with a $1.6, $1.8 billion deficit. That was the budget he submitted to the legislature. What's this next one going to be? I mean, will he just go pencil whip it and say, there you go, $2.5 billion deficit. Have a nice day. Where's the leadership in that? Where, I mean, how do we... It just makes enough sense. And even when we can cut we don't. Even when we can hold down the spending we don't.

And then we get these things that are mostly out of our control. And I'm talking specifically now about the new state employees union. Oh, they reached an agreement on their pay. It's a three-year contract. 11% hike over three years. They're getting an 11% pay raise. The agreement calls for a 3% increase and a $2,500 cash payment on July 1st.

this year a three percent increase and a two thousand dollar cash payment on july first of next year and a five percent increase on the first of july of 2027. The state's also going to increase health care contributions by $300, $152, and $162 during those three years, compared to the $12.50 under the previous contract.

Now, I mean, I don't know if any of those folks even care to read the room as to what's going on financially in the state or not. Because they're just going to hold the state to it, no matter what happens. Even Heidi Dragas, who's the executive director of the union, said this is arguably one of the best contracts they have ever seen. one of the best contract 11 an 11 rate we're all out here just you know struggling to make ends meet still you know pulsing up from covid

We didn't get no cash lump sum payment. We didn't get all this extra, you know, 100% increase in our health care, 200% increase in our health care. But this is one of the best contracts they've ever seen. Now again, none of the stories that I saw actually give you the dollar figure on this. BUT It's got to be the numbers that have been being thrown around last week were somewhere between $200 and $300 million.

in costs. So I imagine this is on the high end of that additional $300 million. So $300 million for the new employee costs, almost $200 million just for the BSA increase. So we're at half a billion dollars there. Plus anything else that they add in in the last minute of the day. I mean, this is... It can't continue. This is what kills me. Do they just think that this will just keep going no matter what? It'll just keep going. Nothing will ever change. We can't wear too big to fail.

I mean, that's what it feels like. That's what it feels like. And now we've got Zach Fields. who's now going to fundamentally change the PFD from a disbursement to owners, to a welfare check with means testing. And locking it in. I don't know if anybody saw this, but you realize that this new $1,000 PFD that they proposed this year, when they said it was going to be $1,400, changed their mind. It's going to only be $1,000.

that that is adjusting for inflation the lowest PFD that's ever been distributed. Adjusting for inflation. The lowest PFD ever. Do you think it's going to get better next year? If there's a two or a two and a half billion dollar deficit? Do you think it's going to be better? Again, train wrecks are entertaining. Unless you're sitting in car number three on the train wreck. Which is kind of where we're at, right?

We've seen the train wreck coming. We can see the bridges out. And we're not outside eating popcorn watching the show. We are in car number two. THAT! is excruciatingly Alright, we gotta go. The Michael Lube Show. Conf, confidence, liberty-based, free-thinking radio. My god, I'm gonna need me some Chris Story in a big way here in just a minute. Back with more, right after this. Listened to by more staffers in Juneau than any other show.

Because their bosses told them to. And after what they just heard, oh man, they're gonna be best. You're a bad, bad man. The Michael Duke Show. I'm so agitated now. I know that doesn't help any of you. I know that doesn't help any of you, but I am so agitated about this whole thing. It's It's I just don't know what to say. I just, I don't know. I don't know. Why can't they see this? This is my question. Why don't they see the same things that we see?

Are they just full of positive optimism? They're just like, oh, it just couldn't possibly happen to us. It just couldn't possibly, couldn't possibly go wrong. It's amazing. Rob says the good news is the vast majority of the BSE increase was already budgeted for. There was a $680 one-time funding money in there already. So now they're just making it permanent. It's not one time anymore. So another 20 bucks.

Maybe Rob can answer that. Rob's supposed to be on the program tomorrow. We'll see if he can be here because of all the budgeting shenanigans that keep changing guests on me and yoinking them out at the bottom of the thing. Um...

I'm not a math guy, but if we didn't have a permanent fund dividend, how much of the state tax would we have to cover our budget? Well, based on some of the numbers that they ran during the fiscal policy working group, I think a 2% sales tax would cover the majority of that. But we haven't run the numbers in quite a while. Haven't had the numbers here on the program in quite a while. Brad had talked about at one point that a 3% or 4% income tax would cover a big chunk of everything as well.

Kim says, no PFD, no CBR, and taxes till you die, and still a permanent BSA increase. They have lost their mind. Yeah. Um... I'm just looking through here. Frank's just like, oh, okay, we can vote new players because he's talking about my charter of changes. Um... Rubin says these legislators are not serious. They're not in for what needs to happen. Oil prices are falling. Serious options are the only options. the ones that hurt yeah Um...

I cut off my TV from GCI yesterday. $259 bill was my breaking point. Holy cow. Are you kidding me? You realize you can get all that by just buying a smart TV, right? A smart TV and a couple subscriptions and you're done. 아... Yeah, this is... I don't even know what to say. I just don't even know what to say. My brain hurts. Let me pull up this story from yesterday. Ah, there we go. Full fit. There we go. this is the story that I was talking about that Shelly Hughes wrote.

in regards to the chicanery. education thing. It's kind of crazy. And we'll get into this here in just a second here. And then we'll finish up with Chris because I can't take too much more of this today. This is just about my breaking point. If we didn't have the permanent fund, we'd need about $3 billion to balance the budget. That's about a 6% sales tax. Well, but if they took all of the permanent fund, they wouldn't need the full. The Michael Duke Show. Left versus right.

I had to look that word up I don't think it means anything. I just don't even have anywhere. I'm almost speechless. I'm so agitated. I just don't understand. As I was saying before we went to break, why don't they see what we see? Why don't they see the problem here inherent in spending much more than you take in? And adding permanent increases to a budget that is going to be in deficit, I guess, forever. How do they not see that? How do they not see making the logical choice?

And then this whole debate over education. And again, I'm going to go back to what I said earlier. A lot of this, in my humble opinion, and that's just it, it's one man's opinion, right? A lot of this in my humble opinion is mismanagement by the school districts. They knew this crisis was coming. They knew that they were facing declining enrollments. They knew that the state was running out of money and savings and that the deficits were going to increase. This is not...

secret stuff that was locked behind closed doors on a need-to-know basis. This was not compartmentalized top secret stuff. It was released every year in the 10-year forecast. They knew it was going on. But see, they want their money. They want that lucre. And then I caught this piece from a couple days ago. Shelly Hughes was writing about it.

She's got a blog. I don't know if you get her newsletter or her blog, but she's got her blog. And this was buried down in the blog from the end of last month, the 28th, the 29th. And it was talking about the Anchorage School District. And the Anchorage School District apparently... overestimated HR by $41 million for the current years and still has those funds available for next year. Remember they're running around saying we've got a $100 million deficit and we don't know what to do?

Well, apparently they had a bunch of money sitting in there. Now, apparently it's standard practice to overestimate to a degree, but ASD's average amount of overestimation for the last three years was 2.5 times more than historically has been done. And then the additional $49 million that the Anchorage School District received from the legislature last summer, remember that $680 one-time boost, $680 million.

Excuse me, $680 per student one-time boost outside the formula? That was $49 million. And that apparently is a big question mark. According to the school board member Kelly Lessons in a document distributed to the legislature, ASD only used about $8 million of that funds for operations in this current year and tucked away the rest for next year, for the upcoming year.

But then according to the superintendent in his letter, all of the $49 million was supplied to their operating budget for this year. And then in a third report to Deed, the Department of Education and Early Development, ASD did not apply any of the $49 million that they received last summer to this year's budget. That's what they submitted to DEED in their reporting.

So you've got three separate reports all saying something different about the $49 million that they just desperately had to have last year. Had to have it. Same part of the same batch of money that they had to have this year. And as Shelly says, as Ricky Ricardo used to say, Lucy, you've got some splaining to do. That's... You've got three different stories about $50 million.

Which is, well, I don't know. I graduated from Lathrop, so I'm not that great at math, but that's about half of what you say your deficit is. Right? 45% of what you say your deficit is. And you've got three different positions on this. And then the thing that I've been pointing out for weeks now is that ASD also, remember when they said, oh, we're going to cut 380 positions if we don't get a $1,000 BSA.

And then Andy Holloman let the cat out of the bag in an ADN story. He mentioned it, and it's only been picked up once or twice since he mentioned it. This is what shocks me, that the news, the journalists let them get away with it. I mean, sure, let them have their quote about 380 positions, but then there's only been once or twice where somebody has mentioned, but of those...

200 positions are not even, they don't even have people in them. They're vacant. There wouldn't be a full number. You know, that 380 is a false inflated number. that most of those would be taken up by resignations or not rehires or unfilled positions. that the majority of those would, but see, it sounds so much better when they could say, oh my, we're going to cut 380 million dollars, 380 positions, we're going to cut them out.

We're going to lose 380 classroom teachers. That's what the implication is. The 380 classrooms will be without their teacher. When it's a lie. They know! Most recently, the HR director at the school district, in another article dated back in the 31st of March of this year, said that the ASD had received 250 resignations. And expected 350 more. 600 voluntary. I'm leaving you, sweet lips. And you're saying that they could cut 380 positions?

Well over half of which don't even have people in them? Well, sounds like you're going to be doing some serious hiring if you're going to have 600 resignations with only 180 positions that you actually have to... I mean, come on! Why do they do this? Why do they paint this bleak picture? Follow the money. Why do they cut art programs? Why do they cut sports programs and math tutors? And why do they cut all the things out that will hurt people?

In so many ways, these high visibility things that you would think would be the last thing that they'd want to cut. Why do they do that? Because they know most people aren't paying attention and they'll just be outraged and they'll reach out to their legislature and say, how dare you hurt my little Johnny or Susie by... allowing them to cut the music program or the art program or the sports program or eliminate his favorite tutor or do whatever it is that they're going to do.

They know that they can motivate the public to go out and advocate for them. So that they get all the money that they want and all the money that they need to do whatever it is that they're doing to perpetuate the machine. The machine, by the way. that's failing. the machine that's producing the 51st out of the 53rd, you know, 53 on the achievement score.

The one that's failing to produce students who can, you know, read, count change, tie their shoes, lead a normal life, whatever it is, that the mass majority of these students can't even read at grade level or do, you know, whatever. It's failing, but they're going to motivate those parents. to get out there and advocate on their behalf with these lies and these half-truths. Because it's worked before.

And this all ties back to what I was just saying a few minutes ago. Now that the Republicans have blinked, Now that they have collaborated and buckled under, and they've given this first tranche of money, Oh, baby, they know what works. They know what works. What do you think this next election cycle is going to be all about? Education funding. I guarantee it. Education funding. This is...

This is what's happening. And we're lapping it up, and we let them get away with it. Three different stories on where $50 million went, and nobody's going, I think somebody needs to report on this right away. I think somebody needs to give me an accounting for where this money is right away. $50 million. And they're like, oh no, we spent it. Oh no, we didn't. Oh we didn't. Oh we didn't. We're not sure. It's somewhere. I'm sure it's here in the couch cushion somewhere.

And nobody's outraged by it? Oh, we trust him. Okay. Okay! Well, I guess we'll see. Again, malfeasance on the parts of these school districts. I see Lisa just said that they closed Nikolajovsk last night. They closed the school, but the borough is going to work with the community so that they don't lose the building. Well, that's big of them. That's big of them. I hope you guys get your charter school going. That's all I can say.

We're going to have to save ourselves, folks. That's what's going to have to happen. All you parents out there that can homeschool, you should be homeschooling right now. And all of these that can homeschool and maybe take some kids from another... friend or parent who can't homeschool and maybe you can help teach their kids maybe you can create a learning pod or something we gotta just pull your kids out just get them out of there

They should not be part of these machinations for just more money and power. And that's what this is all about at this point. $50 million and they don't know what, they can't get their story straight on what happened to it. If I did that, can you imagine having a conversation with an IRS agent? Well, I had $50 million, but I'm not quite sure what I did with it. How would that go for me?

The worst part is these are public funds. These aren't monies that I earned. These are public funds given to them by the state and they can't answer it. It's insane. I'm gonna I'm gonna go get a drink. I'll be back! Chris Story's up next! Common sense, liberty-based, freedom. We're broadcasting live through a series of...

Allowing all of these entities to provide streaming stuff going on the internet. Well, it's kind of hard to explain. Sorry. Streaming live every weekly morning on Facebook Live and Michael Duke's show. dot com. Okay, I'm so pissed right now. I just can't even think straight. Yeah, everybody should pull their kids out of school.

homeschooling charter school get a charter school find a montessori get you know get one parent who's really good at homeschooling and and see if you can get together and do a learning pod with them have all the kids go to their home just to learn I mean something, guys. This is nuts. They got $50 million and they can't tell you where it went with any degree of certainty. One says they spent it all. One says they spent none. One says they only spent $8 million of it. Three official outcomes.

Well, I'll take it with a grain of salt to say that probably the school board member, that's not truly official. The superintendent, he should know better, although he said all of the $49 million was spent. But according to what they submitted to deed, they said they did not apply any of the $49 million to this year's budget. That would be the one that I would be most likely to believe. Because now they're doing official reporting, right?

So which is it? Do they really need them? Somebody needs an audit is what needs to happen there. Somebody needs an audit. I could just imagine the look on the examiner's face if I told some IRS guy, yeah, you know, I don't know what happened to that $50,000 that I had. I mean, I may have spent it. I may not have spent it. I may, you know. I don't know what Good morning Michael. Good morning sir, how are you?

Fantastic. Beautiful day here in paradise. Are you here to save me from myself? Because... No, I would never presume that I could save you. Wow, that was... What if I just say I won't make it worse? That was some savagery right there. All right, okay, that's fine. I mean, I'm not saying you're beyond emotional and mental. philosophical salvation. I'm just saying it's a big ask. It's a big lift at 7.40 in the morning. Thanks, pal. Thanks, pal. Appreciate it. Alright, what's our topic for today?

Three peas in the pot of power. That's fun to say. Three peas in the pot of power? Well, there's two peas in the pot of power anyway, so, I mean, where's the third one? That's what I want to know. Stay tuned. The perpendicular pot of power has three Ps, but there's only two Ps in the other one. All right, well, hold the line. I'll be back to you. Let me go back through some of these comments here real quick to see.

Uh, have a day, everyone, says Terry. Can't say great on this day. Don't, you know, don't, don't, don't be that way. Don't, don't let my, don't let my dauber get you down. Um... Rick says, we just have a terrible group of people who think they know best. It's just nuts what has happened to the state. Another day older and deeper in debt.

Lisa said these moves will make people leave Alaska. The people are pissed at last night's meeting. Got wild. Lots of issues brought up that they don't take parents seriously. But they ask us to beg for money. That's exactly it. They use you. You are all being used as a stalking horse to go to the legislature and bitch and whine and complain and beg for money. That's what they're doing. They're using you as a tool, Lisa. That's what it comes down to. Um... Becky Schwanky Rep Schwanky says.

The original $1.9 billion deficit paying the full PFD, the cost per Alaskan worker was around $4,600 per person. People don't fully grasp the size of our state government. Throw in declining oil prices and potentially declining investment revenue for the permanent fund. The first steps must be to cut PCN's programs and grants. I wouldn't disagree with any of that.

yeah i mean the state of alaska is spending what fourteen thousand dollars for every man woman and child in this state I don't know about you, but for me and my wife and my 2.5 kids that are here at the house, there's three of them, but I mean, I just don't feel like I'm getting my $85,000 worth of public spend. I just don't feel like I'm getting my $85,000 worth of state government here for all that money that they're spending.

Michael is shocked that journalists let a spending politician get away with something. It's not that I'm shocked, I'm disappointed that at least in the... advocacy of journalism, you would at least have a point counterpoint, especially when they admitted it. letting them to repeat the lie that we're cutting 380 positions, and then not say, but of those positions, it's been told earlier that of those positions, 200 of them are vacant. I mean... Продолжение следует...

Nobody has to explain nothing because nobody will hold them accountable. That's true. yeah this whole thing is just Three Ps in the pod of prosperity. I think that's what he said. Was it pod of prosperity? Pot of power. Pot of power? He gets so distracted. Man, I'm so agitated this morning. I'm just... Alright, we're gonna get it. Here we go. The Michael Duke Show. Seriously humorous with a pinch of... Pfft. Pinch of anal- Sorry. That is humorous. Here's Michael Dukes! All right.

one final segment of the show today. We're being joined by Chris Storey, the man from Homer, who comes in every week to talk about positivity, pottery, and... popularity. It's the three Ps. That's his story today. His story is the three Ps of power. Is that right? The pot of power. I can't even remember now. That's how agitated I am. Chris, what's our topic for today? concerned about you, Michael. I want you to maybe wear one of those blood pressure cups every morning from 6 to 8.

I think the telltale sign is the blood shooting out of my eyes. I think that is the telltale sign that it might be too much. So what's your... Three Ps in the pod of power. So I'll just spoiler alert right out of the gate. They are patience, persistence.

prosperity and what they all have in common is that together they work towards your best life it's almost like a GPS coordinates headed towards your best life or at least a better life whatever that is for you and you get to define it but patience i think is a roadmap to to all success it's easy to forget In this instant world, Instagram world that we live in, instant pot, everything's quick, but you can't microwave greatness.

It's got to be slow roasted. It's got to be like a crock pot cooking. And then you get to enjoy the smell all day and you know it tastes better than anything. You can microwave greatness. It just turns out a little rubbery. That's the problem. Right. Lacking flavor. Burn the top of your mouth with a hot pocket. Try that. Then you realize what we're talking about. Exactly. It cannot microwave greatness. And what's the rot?

You know, it's like one of my mottos on the Backyard Millionaire has been get rich. Holy, this is the best way to get rigid. It's like, you know, to have anything you want in life. You've got to have patience followed by the next magical P of... Persistent. And that's the only way to really gain power, to gain prosperity in your life or to gain anything that it is you want, is to have a persistent wind behind your back.

And you're going to have people that doubt you, criticize you. You will have setbacks. You will face obstacles. That's life. You want to move forward though with a persistent steady pace. Jim Rohn used to ask, how long would you give your average baby to learn to walk? Well, naturally you'd say until they can walk. The baby is the most persistent.

person on the planet and you'll look at somebody they don't want to go to bed they're eager to get up in the morning they're ready to go they're constantly on the move maybe a toddler is a better example of that but persistence, always working forward, moving forward in spite of the wins of the doubters, people that hate you. There's people, Michael.

You're not going to really know this because I know that you live sort of in this environment of the emperor wears no clothes and nobody's willing to say that the dudes are walking around naked. But the reality is... people don't like you some people i should have said that some people don't like you and you better get used to that i'm crushed i'm absolutely crushed i thought everybody loves me they like me they really like me

But you're persistent every day, even in the face of utter failure relative to mistake. Moving forward to the third P in the pot of power is prosperity. prosperity and that's that's whole life it's like steve covey steven covey used to talk about you know the bank account of your life are you your emotional bank account is it running over or is it you know overdrawn you know you need to put into you need to deposit into the areas of your health

having energy to live a full life your wealth which means that you'll have options and be able to make an impact your family that's part of your whole life is having your support system a healthy family around you and then contribution how what are you what are you adding to the world what are you adding to your community or are you just not you michael but are you just taking away or are you adding and your contribution will actually define

your legacy and it's not just in your charitable work although that matters but also what are you what are you contributing relative to the commentary of the of the moment and how much are you actually contributing where people will go I remember when they did that or said that. It's a matter of putting all these peas into one pod. to create a good life. And again, there are patience, persistence, and prosperity.

And Buckminster Fuller defined prosperity as the amount of wealth you have going forward without working for it. So it's the result of your hard work over a lifetime that I think also should include your health. and your family and the legacy you're leaving behind towards your contribution. You're talking about residuals, right? I mean, that's the beautiful thing. That's when you've leveraged everything that you've done into something where it continues to work for you even if you don't.

I remember my grandfather said something about that when I was very young. I didn't understand what he meant at the time. But looking back on it, I know the residual effect of where money keeps... The pump keeps pumping even though you're not at the handle anymore. And that's when you know that you've hit it. You've hit it at that point. You know now that things are going to get better from there on in.

Zig Zig, you mentioned a pump. Zig Ziglar used to crisscross the country and actually go around the world. And he had this beautiful pitcher pump that he would take with him and bring on stage. And he said he would bring it onto the airplane too. Sometimes it gets a strange look. But the idea is if you've ever used a pitcher pump, it really takes a while. You've got to really work at it to prime that pump until water gets up to the top. And then once it gets there and you've done the work.

it doesn't take much it doesn't take near as much just you can slowly move the lever and you can kind of keep that water flowing and that that's the same with with anything in life be it your wealth be it residuals from investments and hard work or your family and family will pay you back at some point we're taking care of children and then

Life comes full circle. They're taking care of us. That's the idea of all those things working in harmony together. And success doesn't happen all at once. We see certain... aspects of maybe somebody being discovered on America's Got Talent. The next thing you know, they're everywhere, whatever. Those are some aspects. Some people will win the lottery. Some people will have an uncle they never met. Leave them a vast fortune. Wonderful. for the majority of us. It's a slow steady process.

And if we're not living in the present and we're not present focused. with goals in mind for the future and reminiscing about the good days as well but if we're not present focused life will slip through our fingers and before you know it you're looking back going wow Where did all the time go? And now suddenly you might really need to be in a hurry if you haven't planned for the winter when it comes fall. Alright, so we've got the three Ps. Uh, to the pot of power. Um...

How do we implement those? So break it down. I always ask you to do this because I'm a simple, simple man. You know that. Simple. How do we break it down to put that into play in our lives on a daily basis? You know, the patience, persistence, etc. That's exactly what I'm doing and why this is present in my mind right now is with the Fair Tax Act reform that I'm hoping to...

I wanted the McDonald's approach. I wanted to have food. I wanted to get this done at the borough assembly level, quick, easy. I just wanted it done here for a little microcosm of the Cape Town Peninsula. Well, obviously that didn't happen.

And so now we have to go through the process of either going and collecting signatures and doing a statewide ballot initiative or actually proposing a House bill, which hopefully would then get to a committee and then get passed and change Title 29 in the state. Trust me, I am having to exercise patience that I do not want to exhort on this. I do not. I would rather have already moved on, but... I'm having to remind myself, Chris, you don't change a state law or statute.

quickly it's not going to happen overnight exercise patients and it has to be persistent i can't just turn it over to somebody like i love to delegate it to an individual can't do it you gotta stay with it and there's critics a few handful of critics by the way the biggest critic i've had so far Pays zero for property tax themselves. Okay, that's great.

And so you got to keep moving forward. And we failed once, no problem. That's a setup for the future. It's not a setback. It's a setup for what's coming. I have to take my own medicine. Don't taste good. And then prosperity. Look, this isn't for me. This isn't for you. This is for... contributing to all of society around Alaska because the tax is getting too high. So it is about the wealth.

of everybody in Alaska and the future and families and contributing. And I don't want my name on the bill or the law, but I do want to feel like I did contribute something.

towards the betterment of the property owner because that's paramount to a prosperous society and right now we're being taxed to death we are being choked alive and buried alive and our heads are just above the sand and here comes the assessor with another shovel full and they're just getting ever closer to covering your mouth And so I'm having to exercise all of these things from patience to persistence to thinking about a whole life and a prosperous future for everyone in Alaska.

Well, I think that the patience and persistence part, I think some of us have down already, you know, and it's the consistent, you know, it's what I talk about on the show a lot of times. We can't grow weary in well-doing. Just because we haven't succeeded yet doesn't mean that we won't, so we can't stop pushing in that direction, and then we've got to have the patience that hopefully somebody will eventually see.

things the way that we see them uh at that point so i mean i think this is a good advice uh last uh 60 seconds here chris i'll let you sum eight for today Well, the model, look, I've got a gentleman on my show today named Jim Stovall, his third appearance on my show. He's blind. He has written 50 books, nine of which have been turned into featured films starring James Garner and Louis Gossett Jr. and Abigail Breslin, this guy.

is amazing creating an entire television network once he turned the line at the age of 30 and i i gotta tell you there's probably no day that he doesn't have to exercise patience. He has been completely persistent and he's become incredibly wealthy and prosperous.

We can do it. If he can do it, show me the person that's done it and I'll follow in their steps. That's what I always said. All right, Chris Story, the man from Homer. You can find him at ilovehomeralaska.com. All of his books, his writings, his blogs, his podcasts, everything. It's his whole...

brain it's like it exploded over there go check it out chris thanks so much my friend my pleasure michael thank you tomorrow rob myers is going to be joining us the michael duke show be kind love one another live Okay. Well, I'm slightly mollified. I'm not 100% yet, slightly mollified. Gotta go have some Irish. my day maybe that'll make my outlook better i don't know

No, he wasn't talking about you, Barbara. You weren't his biggest critic. There's a guy down here that's been railing on And that guy pays no property taxes whatsoever. Shocking, I tell you. I'm not really shocked. Nothing shocks me anymore. i say it only for shock value there's some irony for you all right my friends be kind Love one another. and live well. We'll see you guys. The Michael Lube Show. Coffee sense, right? We've shed our terror.

And now we are slimy lizard internet people. It's Tom Michael.