Wednesday 4/9/25 | Headlines, Teen Mayhem | Sen Mike Cronk

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 michaeldukeshow.com and across the state of Alaska on this your favorite radio station and or FM translator. Good morning, my friends. How are you? Welcome to the program. It is the hump day edition of the big radio show. Wow, there were so many. I was trying to record some actualities before the show to get... Oh, man, there's just so many things. And anyway, wow. Just wow.

We're ready to go and ready to jump in with both feet and get things ready to rock and roll. Hour one today, we've got some headlines. And some stories from around the state, including the latest on the parent, excuse me, the student teacher ratios. Some madness with some of the teens that are going on around the state. Stuff happening down in Kodiak with some... Like a whole Ponzi scheme of permitting and illegal fishing and... um and more plus the uh plus the uh

uh, latest from the house and what's going on with the budget talks. And wow, it's a lot. It's a lot. It's a lot, a lot. It's all coming down here this morning in hour one as we go through all this nuttiness and this madness. Then in hour two, we're going to be joined by Mike Kronk. who is a senator up there from the interior, who's going to give us his take on what's going on inside the legislature and also his latest push.

By some strange stretch of the imagination, the gas line actually does happen that we guarantee that there is a cutoff to Fairbanks, that there's a spur. to Fairbanks so that Fairbanks can have access to... the natural gas that would come down off the North Slope. So there's a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot of stuff happening. And it's going to be...

It's going to be interesting. Going to be interesting, to say the least. A good show, I hope, today as we continue on with this Wednesday stuff. How are you this morning? You ready to go? Stay in. It's got me this. The weather just keeps continuing to tease me. I thought, you know, it's almost like 30 degrees. It's going to be fine. Don't worry about it. And yet more snow overnight. I think I've probably got about four or five inches now down here. I'm still trying to decide what does...

What does Witter and Homer actually look like? It's one of those things where I haven't quite figured it out yet. Took me a little bit to figure it out when I moved from Fairbanks to Wasilla, and now it's... It's even weirder because I've had this false spring for, you know, several, what, three, four weeks, three and a half, four weeks of nothing, some rain, most of the snow was gone, and now we're back to...

Uh, there's a, you know, a bunch of snow and, and, and everything. It's supposed to be 30, it's supposed to be 35 this weekend, but, uh. I don't know. I don't, I just, I don't know. I can't tell. I can't tell. Somebody from Homer's going to have to lay it out for, I don't even know what it's like up in Soldatna right now. So anyway, it's, um, it's, it's Wednesday. It's Wednesday.

And we're ready to get into it and get things ready to rock and row. Too soft to plow, says Greg. He does a lot of snow plowing. Too soft to plow. Yeah, well, we're just going to drive on it. We're just going to make it work. All right. So this morning, this morning, it's. I just love this. I love the fact that it just seems like the legislature, the vast majority of the legislators. Just suddenly, um... just suddenly discovered that there's a crisis.

God, there's a crisis. What's going on? What's happened? We had all this money. I mean, wasn't it just a couple years ago? that Natasha Bonihimov was like, we've got so much money, we don't even know where to spend it. And now it's like, um, why there's a, um, Frank in the chat room is quoting Bryce Edgman, uh, because everybody's been doing press majorities and, uh, or press, uh, pressers.

including the majority and Bryce Edgeman in the House who said, we're all in a pickle. It's not just the House majority. It's the House minority. It's the governor. It's the Senate majority. It's the Senate minority. We all own the situation in front of us. Speak for yourself, Jack. I've been warning about...

Again, it doesn't feel good to say I told you so when we're all in the middle of it. That's where we're at. We're all in the middle of it. We're all feeling it. We're all going to feel the pain. We all own the situation in front of us. This is on you, okay? This is on you, Bryce Edgeman, Bert Stedman. Even some of our Republican friends over the years who have caved on certain things own a part of this. But this has been coming for a long time.

You know, I mean, this has been. Yeah. Miguel just said, haven't you been speaking about this for the past 10 years, Mike? Yeah. Try the last 15 or 20 years. This is one of the first topics that we took up when I first started the show was, you know, that our spending was out of control in this state. I mean, this is crazy. But all of a sudden, it's a pickle. And we're all, it's all our fault. We all own the situation in front of us. You more than most, Bryce.

and Lyman and Gary Stevens and all the people who have been in the legislature for the last 25 years, you could have seen this coming. I mean, we've been talking about, how long have we been talking about the governor's tenure? Well, since Dunleavy's been office, we really focused on it. the governor's 10-year forecast because we could see it coming. $1.98 billion in the community. $1.98 billion. Uh, it, it, it's, it's, I mean, it's, it's, it's crazy. You know, it's absolutely crazy.

And then apparently Andy Josephson, uh, during the presser. And I was trying to get the audio before we, uh, I was trying to get the audio right before we came on air. And it's 30 seconds of Andy Josephson begging. The minority to cooperate with the majority, please, please come. This is Andy Josephson, the one who is so against the PFD in so many ways. And yet accidentally left the PF. It was an oversight. The accidental PFD. And then he spends 30 seconds begging the minority.

Why, you know, to to to allow to go ahead and vote from the CBR to vote from savings to fund everything. And then telling Alaskans he does not understand why we want the PFD. I mean, you know, and so this leads me to another question. And maybe this is just my cynicism showing. Maybe this is just my cynicism. But I start to wonder, was it really an oversight? Was it just a counting error? A Scrivener's error? Was it really accidental?

Or did they know that by leaving it in there, they'd leave this big old hole and then they'd have to have an excuse. And then if they could cajole the minority into voting. to draw from the CBR and then pass it over to the Senate, it would give the Senate a huge chunk of money to be able to do with what they want. I mean, you know, there, that's, I gotta wonder at some point. I mean, I, you know, at some point I got to wonder what, what's going on. So he spends time and check cop. He spent.

He spent a good minute, you know, saying, well, I, I, you know, I reached out and I reached out to the minority and, or I reached out to the now minority and ask them what kind of majority would they be? You know, would they. And what would you do with the dividend? And if they'd given me a different answer, well, then I would have joined them. Although I'm hearing through the grapevine that he didn't really meet with anybody to ask them about any of that. He just kind of just went ahead and.

Oh, man. This whole thing is just absolute madness with what's going on in there. So the house now is deadlocked. They got disagreements over the size of the permanent fund dividend. They've got school funding over the size of the budget itself. And more. Sean McGuire over at the ADN writes about it. Bryce Edgeman also quotes, I'm really reaching out to the minority. Let's negotiate. Let's talk about some things we can do to make ends meet in the way that doesn't eviscerate basic services.

You know, this probably would have been a good thing to think about when you basically were stonewalling the minority, not voting for any, in some cases, not even allowing their bills or their amendments to be heard. If you wanted them to play nice with you, maybe you should have played nice to begin with. So there's a bunch of the legislative members that are all stuck on this thousand dollar boost to the BSA and that it has to be inside the formula.

They want, you know, I mean, this is just, they're stuck in it. And again, the Edgman Pickle quote. And of course, there are some members of their caucus who are, you know, they only have a one vote. And so at any given time, any kind of waffling on their part, they're not going to be able to get anything done. Mia Costello, the House Minority Leader, suggested a separate Tuesday media conference.

that the minority has been largely shut out from the budget debates. Like I said, now is not the time to come in and cajole and go hand in hand and say, work with us, help us, bail us out. It was like Sarah Vance said yesterday. Why would I bail them out of the mess that they got into? They're the ones that have created this. Costello said we're willing to be part of the conversation and we want to move forward, and we're not often given that opportunity.

And then Rep Chuck, Chuck Kopp, who is the majority leader, the Republican, I mean, ostensibly Republican. We need a House minority that's willing to step up, take some hard votes, and agree that you can't duck the question of the size of the dividend. I mean, the fact that it's cop doing that is just, I mean, wow. Wow.

Now, Will Stapp, who we were hoping to have on the program today but was not able to do it, said yesterday that both the statutory PFD and the $1,000 BSA boost would need to be reduced. Republican Delada Johnson suggested recent budget additions should be pulled back. But neither the majority or the minority offered specifics about how to reduce the deficit beyond generalities about budget cuts and working together. This is where we're at. Now, what does this lead to?

Probably special session. I mean, I'm thinking that is probably more and more likely at this point. But again, the fact that everybody all of a sudden is, oh my, there's a deficit. Oh my, we've over, oh my, we're broke. Well, no... No stuff, Sherlock. Are you... Have you not been paying attention? Oh my! What do we do now? We're broke! I mean, what? Dude, I am so frustrated over this. This is day two of just like, I was, you know, I look at all of you and just go, you know, why did you go full?

that's where we're at right now well now you need we made this mess and now you need to come to the table and fix it with us that was basically the answer we made this mess but you now we're all responsible for it The Michael Duke Show. Common Sense Liberty Base. 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.

Kevin says negotiate evil laugh. Um, it is, um, it is what it is. It is what it is. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Can you say dumpster fire? Says Greg. You have to listen to this. I don't know what this is, but it's a Facebook link that Kevin's sharing. I can't follow it from this window. Um, Bill said something about MD. Did you lose power? I did not lose power and I won't lose power because one of the things we have here at the old radio station.

It actually went out for about four hours on Sunday. And the power in the house itself went out. for about 15 or 20 seconds. And then it came back on. But none of the radio stations lost power. We were on the air the entire time. because battery backups are a thing and i got everything wired so if everything goes down this studio will stay lit so let's

I mean, I wasn't on the air at the time, like in the studio, but it'll be interesting to see if we ever do have a power outage because theoretically I've got it all wired up so that we won't go off the air. The stations never went off the air. because we got a big uh we got a big backup generator powers the whole top of the ridge here Um, anyway, um, so are you without power bill? Sorry about that, my friend. Sorry. Um, let's see.

The accidental PFD put in in the committee substitute. Then when all the votes voted to adopted it as their working documents, they realized what they had done. They had to get it out by vote. No coffee for Bill. That's a sin right there. Anyone going to the dog and pony show at the chamber to hear superintendent Clayton Holland's presentation? No. Now they want the majority, the minority help when refusing to answer questions like, how are we going to pay for this? Yeah. Yeah. No, I'm with it.

Let's see, Cyrus has got a block of text here, and we run out of space here. The manipulative career politician bottom feeders routinely make poor decisions on our funding for the future, and here we are in a pickle again. Point of interest to show how bad things are, the Alaska Department of Public Assistance is on the cusp of losing all federal funding because they can't process assistance payments.

Two Alaskans in need of a 36% fulfillment rate and goes on to talk about that more and more and more. So, yeah. No, I mean, I'm, you know. This is the problem. Anthony said he hates the word. He hates the word services. He hates the word services. The government, using that word, implied they're doing something benevolent out of the kindness in their heart. In reality, it should be expense or project to imply it's something the government decided to do of its own volition.

Kevin says, McGuire didn't use any of what I had to say. Pay the full PFD and use it as a spending cap. That is, I mean, that really would be if you put paid the full PFD and then you had all these other leftover things, it would be a spending cap. Okay. All right. I think we're all caught up. I think we're all caught up. We're actually about 60 seconds out. And I got this. Where is it? Where is this? Where is this?

i'm looking for the oh here's the facebook thing with the video um you guys won't be able i'm just testing something you guys won't be able to hear this on the stream but on the podcast you will be. I just want to see if this is the one here. copy i'm just we're about to why there are people who still cling to this vision that we can pay a multi-billion dollar dividend is beyond me i'm okay okay

You guys in the chat room are going to hate me for this, but I'm going to play this actuality from Andy Josephson. You won't be able to hear it, apparently. We'll see if we can get it on, but here we go. The Michael Duke Show, Common Sense Radio. Let's do it. 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.

Okay. I was having problems this morning with some of the audio from these actualities, but... I did get this one, and I just, this is Andy Josephson. Just can't understand why people. Why people want the PFD? Why would people want a PFD? And why won't the minority work with us? Why there are people who still cling to this vision that we can pay a multi-billion dollar dividend is beyond me.

I'm troubled by it. And I respect that people have a position about how this is the Alaska people's share. I get all that. I've read the editorials. There are some legal arguments there. But I think that we need the cooperation of the minority. This is their budget too. We haven't had that participation. Instead, they seem recklessly to support a unaffordable full dividend. We need their cooperation. We need their cooperation. We need their cooperation.

They expect an unaffordable full dividend. We need their cooperation. Because your stuff has been working out so, so well. so well. Thank you so much for all your, for all your help. Because your stuff has been working so well on this. I, uh, I don't even, I don't even know what to say. I just don't even know what to say to that other than welcome to the party, pal. I'm sorry, Mike Cronk is asking me a question about being on the show here in just a few minutes.

I can't talk and type at the same time. I guess it's one of those things. It's what I can multitask in a variety of ways, but when I'm talking, I can't type something completely different from what I'm actually saying. which is a little disappointing. I mean, I'd think of all the talents that, you know, the Lord could bless me with. I would hope that...

I would wish that he could at least give me the ability to talk about one thing and type something completely different at the same time. But apparently that's not. That's not the case. All right. What else? So what else we got talking about? Well, Frank just said something. If MD is serious about running the train off the cliff, because that was what we were talking about on Monday, right? Well, this thing's just going to go off the rails anyway, and we can either drag it out.

and have nothing left over no gas left in the tank when it's all over or we could crash it early still have some money in the p and the permanent funds still do And he says, if they're really serious about running the train off the cliff, then we should not vote for anyone who claims to be conservative next cycle. I think that might be a bridge too far. That might be a bridge too far. That's what we need to do.

Oh, man. I just, I'm just shocked. All right. Well, let's get off the legislature for just a minute here. And let's talk about some of the other stuff that's happening. So I just caught this story and I'm just like, but, but, but it couldn't possibly be. It couldn't possibly be. Oh, dang it. I did. I refresh the. I'm sorry I accidentally refreshed one of my windows and I lost the story. Here we go.

Today, after a multi-month investigation, the Alaska wildlife troopers charged 69-year-old Duncan Field 64-year-old Wallace Fields, 66-year-old Beth Fields, and 67-year-old Leslie Fields, all of Kodiak, along with Fields and Sons, Inc.,

with multiple criminal charges related to the violation of Alaska law at the Department of Fish and Game. After a multi-month investigation, wildlife troopers... charged all those folks with multiple criminal charges related to violation of Alaska law and regulation between 2020 and 2024. In March of last year, troopers received information about suspicious fishing permit activity associated with the field's family.

Further investigation revealed that members of the Fields family were engaging in illegal salmon set net permit transfers, falsely giving permits to employed crew members and later reclaiming them in violation of state law. What this is like, are they playing like hot potato with the investigators found that from 2020 to 24. Everybody named submitted fraudulent permit transfer paperwork.

commingled fish harvests, and exceeded legal gear limits, generating approximately, wait for it, $1.17 million in illegal proceeds. They interviewed over 21 crew members revealing a coordinated scheme involving false statements under penalty of perjury and permit manipulation to defraud the state and the fish buyer. They've been charged with multiple counts of scheme to defraud, theft, perjury, CFEC permit, false statement, and fishery violation. De... De... De...

I mean, you just can't, you just can't make, there's always one bad actor out there. There is always one that, I mean, wow. 21 people. How in the world can you keep some kind of conspiracy secret when you've got 21 people? who were crew members who were apparently involved or interviewed at this point. Now, at the same time, maybe we should be talking about the trawlers.

If, you know, if people have got, I'm not excusing them, but if they're resorting to this, maybe we should be, I mean, maybe the Trump, anyway, I'm not even going to get into it. Not even going to get into it at this point. But yeah, that's some crazy stuff. What else? Oh, and then there's this story. So I heard about this on Facebook and I thought, well, this can't possibly be true. And this is before it was being reported by both the ADN and KTUU. Okay.

And there was a report that apparently there was a viral TikTok. A viral TikTok. showing that during a screening of the Minecraft movie last week at the at the Valley Cinema. That there was a disruption, that there was a bad influence and just some badness happened. And that the Wasilla police were called. Now, if you'll recall, things are a little edgy when it comes to the Valley Cinema because last year a teenager got stabbed and died as a result of that stabbing. Last year.

And so anytime you hear something about, you know, something bad happening out there, you're a little leery about what's going on. Turns out it was true. There was actually a, there was actually a TikTok. that has over 4.4 million views. Teenagers behaving badly, my friend. teenagers without parents. Now, look, I loved living in the Mat-Su. I did. It was a great place. I really enjoyed it.

And I liked the people, but obviously there's a whole cadre of people out there who aren't teaching their kids crap. Because I will tell you right now, I mean, I would be putting my kids in a barrel and feed them through the bunghole for the next five years if they acted this way. Not literally. Everybody out there, somebody dial OCS. He's gonna... All my kids are grown, so forget it. But you know what I mean.

These kids were behaving badly. Now, according to part, now some of this wasn't caught on the, the, the part that triggered this whole thing was not on video. Apparently a group of teenagers were being rowdy. And they were asked by cinema employees to cool their jets, right? Now, this whole thing is part of a national trend, apparently. And I don't know if it was a, I couldn't figure out if it was an actual TikTok challenge or not.

But apparently during the Minecraft movie, they're treating it like it's a Rocky Horror Picture Show, right? Like when a certain... creature comes out or a certain character does something they all you know how it is a toast and everybody throws toast you know remember the rocky horror picture show kind of thing

But apparently during this, you know, they would just throw popcorn all over the place. They'd throw, spray their sodas in the air. There was pictures in one of the TikToks that I found about it where they were. vomiting all over the, I mean, it was just, it's crazy. So this group of teenagers in Wasilla were getting rowdy. And when they were confronted by the employees to ask them to calm down. They got physical with one of the employees and body slammed one of the employees against a wall.

Well, the manager had had about enough of that, and he called the police. And the video that is up on TikTok with 4.4 million views shows the Wasilla Police Department. It shows the movie pausing in the middle of the movie. And the lights coming up and everybody being mad and booing and hissing. And then the Wasilla police are standing there saying you, you, you, you and you all in the back. You're not welcome here anymore. Get out.

And the teenagers complaining on the way out the door. This is just bad behavior. You know what? these kids need a beat down in real life. Like, you know, a beat down. I'm sorry. I, well, I just, I can't, I can't say if I was, no. And of course, the problem is this is going on across the nation. This is not, you know, even if it was a national problem, I would think, well, Alaskans wouldn't do that. But no, apparently we're on the bleeding edge forefront of this kind of stuff.

But this is going on across the country. Reports have surfaced across the country in Canada and in the UK. And now, in fact, it got so bad in the UK that at least one of the big movie chains in the UK... Puts up a warning at the beginning of the movie that says disruptive behavior, including taking part in TikTok trends before, during, or after a screening will not be tolerated. I mean, they put a thing up on the screen. But this is... I mean... This is the monkey see, monkey do behavior.

that is going on across, you know, for this whole thing, the Tide Pod, the Cinnamon Challenge, all these other things, everybody looking for their viral moment of fame. And of course, the teenagers are the most susceptible to this because they have no regard for future consequences. But this is just, I did not expect this. You know, I guess I expected better and I thought, well, we're different up here, but apparently not. Apparently we're not any different.

than any of this. I will tell you this, if my kid had been one of those things, Uh, had been one of the, the, the kids that were escorted out. I recognize them on video. I found out about it through the grapevine that they were the ones that some of them body slammed. That was the other thing. That was the, it was this, it was this ladies. First day on the job, it was a woman who was an employee at the theater being body slammed against the wall by teenagers. And the group was about 15 strong.

So good job picking on a woman, guys. But she shared with KTUU that it was her first day on the job. We're doomed. Doomed. Doomed. Doomed. All right, we got to go. We will continue here. The Michael Duke Show, Common Sense, Liberty-based, free-thinking radio. Back with more in just a moment. Up next, we're going to talk about Parent. Excuse me. Student-teacher ratios. That's all ahead on The Michael Duke Show. Common Sense, Liberty Base, Free Thicket 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 weekly morning on Facebook Live and MichaelDukesShow.com. Okay. Kevin says there might be more to that Fields thing. He was talking about the Kodiak deal. Yeah, I agree. There's probably more to it. It caught my eye this morning.

My question is, why are we paying more attention to the trawler thing on top of everything else? Maybe we'd have an abundance of fish and people wouldn't be... Felt like they were forced to do things like that with the permits and all the other kind of... Maybe we should... I don't know. It just seemed... Yeah. unemployed fatherless behavior yeah that's my decoy voice friend right there saying it right there where are the parents you know um Where are the parents?

Melody said, I'm so glad I chose not to take my kids to that movie that night. I was at a local middle school yesterday. There was Wasilla PD everywhere. Well, that was probably through this other story that I didn't get to. A teen was arrested, 17-year-old student was arrested following an investigation regarding suspected drug distribution at Matsu Career Tech High.

The troopers found packaged marijuana and a handgun with an altered serial number found inside the student's vehicle. What the? I mean, what? I mean, that could be it. I just don't know. All right, I'm going to play you guys this Josephson. I was able to record it while I was playing it, and I know you guys missed it, but this is Andy Josephson.

I think it's probably got a little bit of my commentary on it too, but I'm going to play it again because you guys missed it. I wanted you guys to feel my pain. Andy Josephson. begging, not just not, just not understanding. Why do you guys want a PFD? We know better than you how this should work. Don't you know? No. Public Anima. No, that's not what it was. That's not right. Okay, I lied. I wasn't able to get it. That was not what I had rec... What's not what I had... Well, maybe it was.

It was that one. All right, hold on. Here it comes. Public Anima number one. Oh, wait, sorry. Can you guys hear that? 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 was having problems this morning with some of the audio from these actualities, but I did get this one. And I just, this is Andy Josephson. Just can't understand why people.

why people want the PFD. Why, why would people want a PFD and why won't the minority work with us? Why there are people who still cling to this vision that we can pay a multi-billion dollar dividend is beyond me. I'm troubled by it. And I respect that people have a position about how this is the Alaska people's share. I get all that. I've read the editorials. There are some legal arguments there.

But I think that we need the cooperation of the minority. This is their budget too. We haven't had that participation. Instead, they seem recklessly to support a unaffordable full dividend. We need their cooperation. We need their coin. They're just not participating. This is their budget too. I mean, we haven't given them any opportunity to change anything and we've held them back and we're treating them like redheaded stiff children, but you know, it's, it's fine. Don't worry about it.

Oh, my God. It's this whole thing. Dwayne says, Michael, I'm sorry, Michael says, the reason the fishing is getting stopped is the trawlers decimated our resource. Teresa said that disgruntled crew members can be formidable. I never said that these guys were actually guilty. I just threw the story out there because it caught my attention. I thought it was interesting.

Teresa said, when we accidentally forgot to get the sign up on time above our Bush country commercial set net, the law enforcement almost did a SWAT on us. Like they almost sent a SWAT team out or something. I mean. Yeah. Okay. It's, it's, you know. It's crazy. It's crazy what's going on. Greg asked hazard pay for theater workers. Yeah. Yeah. Um,

Many years ago back in Minnesota we had one theater in Minneapolis that would screen Rocky Horror Picture Show on the weekends and that was it. It was treated like a fun interactive event and people didn't act like morons. No, and those theaters, those theaters always prepared, right? They put trash bags over the seats and everything else because there's always stuff flying around and everything. Where are the parents? I wasn't hitting the wrong buttons.

Teen crime is an indicator of a lousy economy. No, it's an indicator of lousy parenting, Harold. That's the problem. And a lousy education system. Both, in this case. All right, here we go. The Michael Duke Show. Seriously humorous with a pinch of intellect. Pinch of intellect. Sorry. That is humorous. Here's Michael Dukes. Okay, let's continue on here this morning. Sorry, I got sidetracked during the break. I was replaying that Andy Josephson commentary for the chat room.

And I was like, what is actually the Josephson? I mean, that guy is. I mean, the audacity of, I don't understand why you guys would want a PFD. We're perfectly capable of spending your money. I don't know why you would want it. And in the minority, it's your budget, too. I mean, we didn't let you do anything with it, but, you know, we're just, you know. Uh, anyway, um, let's, uh, let's, let's move on to the final topic for today, the, for this hour. Um, and the final topic for this hour is.

Lies! Lies! The lies. of the education industry you've heard it i know you have You've heard the testimony of the teachers. We're so overwhelmed. We've got so many students. We've got so many students that we don't have enough desks in the classroom. It's like Mogadishu in here. We've heard it, right? I mean, you've heard it. I've heard it. Right? I mean, that's, this is what we've been hearing.

We've been hearing how bad it is and how it's only going to get worse. They'll have 40, 40 students per year. It's going to be horrible. Now, there are classes. that have higher student counts. But that's definitely the exception and not the rule. In the meantime, several bills have been filed to cap the number of students in the classroom. Now, Zach Fields.

filed a bill, HB 98, trying to limit the pupil teacher ratio in public schools. But surprisingly, his bill only applies to districts that have more than 40,000 students, which means it only applies to the Anchorage. Apparently. To the Anchorage School District. Apparently, it doesn't, you know, apparently class size doesn't affect learning anywhere else. Only in Anchorage.

Only in Anchorage. Then Julie Cologne got in the mix, filed HB 165, which also caps the number of students per classroom, but her bill only applies to districts that have more than 35,000 students. fields signed onto her bill as well because you know but what does the data really say well david boyle who is a friend of the show and an education advocate and now writes pretty regularly for Must Read Alaska's got an article up talking about it. And he gets into the numbers.

He says, the data is very, very, very, very interesting. This data is very, very interesting. The Department of Education and Early Development submitted its annual progress report. And as required by the report, it contains the PTRs, the pupil-teacher ratio for all the K-12 schools. So they get to the overview, the big numbers. They overhead the 10,000-foot view. In Anchorage, the pupil-teacher ratio is 17.95 to 1.

In Anchorage, it's 19.10. In the Mat-Su, it's 18.89. In Juneau, it's 16.46. Down here on the Kenai, it's 15.92 to 1. Now, granted, those are the averages across the entire district. Some will have more, some will have less, but the average gives you kind of the, again, the bird's eye view of all this thing. But see, then David goes down and he drills down further into this. And he drills down into some of the class sizes. In Anchorage, Aquarian Charter has 17.6.

Alaska Native Cultural Center has 13 per teacher. Bartlett High, 20.16 per teacher. Clark Middle School, 16.4. Eagle Academy, 15.83. Except for Anchorage's correspondence, all the schools have a parent-teacher ratio of less than 23 students per teacher. Anderson Elementary, 19.21. Denali Elementary, 16.82. Lathrop High School, 18.53. My old alma mater. West Valley High School, 18.57. North Pole Middle School, 15.88. All the schools have a PTR ratio of less than 21 students per teacher.

And down in the Kenai, where all we're hearing about, in fact, they talked about this the other day, didn't they? Oh, this is going to classroom sizes, and it's going to be horrific, and we're broke. Aurora Borealis Charter School, 16.2. Homer Middle School, 13.8. Kenai Central High, 18.1. Seward High, 16.01. Saldana Elementary, 12.2 to one. Skyview, 14.1. Sterling Elementary, 11 to one.

The Matsu had some of the highest. Matsu was Colony High had 20.6, Colony Middle School 22.26, Wasilla Middle 18.47, Palmer Middle 18.29. And guys, guys, guys. This is not what we're hearing. We're hearing about classrooms overflowing with students and some of them don't even have desks or shoes. They have no shoes. And we had to feed them from the toilet water, the back of the tank, because nobody packed a lunch for them. Didn't you hear about this? I mean, this is...

This is what happens when you've got an industry out there trying to basically just bilk money out of you. Bilk it. Well, why do you hate the children? Don't you know they have no chews and they have no desks and no pencils? And it's all because you hate the children. There's 40 children per classroom. And they're going to lay off 400 teachers!

Now, actually, there's 320 vacant positions, but we're not going to tell you that they're vacant. But they're going to lay on 400 positions. I mean, this is what's going on. they claim the ptr is not a source measure says kevin because it includes any employees with a teaching certificate including administrators well if that's the case put the administrators in the classroom

That's not, and by the way, the PTR, that's not how it's meant to be counted. Because if that is how you're counting it, you're counting it wrong. PTR is supposed to be a judge of. is supposed to be a judge of actual pupil to teacher, teacher in the classroom ratio. If you're counting all those administrators who happen to have current teaching certificates, you're doing it wrong. Unless by doing that, you get more money for something else, in which case maybe you're doing it right.

I mean, that's what they're doing. They're just milking us, folks. They're telling us exactly what, you know, no shoes on these kids' feet and now no desks. They have to stand on the cold floor with no shoes and no desks. I mean, that's what we're hearing. But those numbers don't lie. I mean, the NEA, the teachers, apparently, the districts, they're there apparently, but, you know. Apparently.

What are you going to do? I don't know. But we'll find out more in hour two. The Michael Duke Show. Common Sense Radio. Melissa says we do have classes with 27 plus in the classroom in Fairbanks in all grade levels. Well, and so again, those were averages, Melissa. But you tell me, is that the exception or is it the rule? Because, again, according to the numbers here, Anderson Elementary at 19.21, Denali at 16.8, Lathrop at 18.5, West Valley 18.5.

North Pole Middle, 15.8. Ryan Middle, 16.3. So tell me, is it the exception of the rule or are they counting all the administrators in these? in these PTRs that they're submitting to the state. Because I would argue at that point, if this is what's happening,

and the numbers that are being reported to the state are artificially low, because they're including all these administrators, I would argue that they are counting it wrong. Pupil teacher ratios are supposed to be... students to the teachers in their actual classroom. That's what the average person would see when they look at this. They would be like, OK, people teacher ratio. OK, I see how many students in each class compared to a teacher.

But if they're including guidance counselors and junior whatever and vice prince whatever that happen to have a teaching certificate and they're counting them in the numbers, then I would argue they are doing it wrong. That's what's going on. So, and like I said, there may be some teachers, but those are the exception, not the rule. Those are the averages. Okay. Sorry. I'm getting a little worked up here. I'm getting a little worked up. um let me um

Let me check out things. I see that Mike Kronk is... in the uh he's in the green room so let's bring him on board and just check his audio and everything before we get going on too far we're not going to get we're not going to get into it with him quite yet Because we're going to rejoin the show here in about three and a half minutes. But let's do the sound check. I've had so many interesting problems this morning. I think a sound check is probably in order. Good morning, my friend. How are you?

I'm doing good, Michael. How about yourself? You know, it's Wednesday and I just, I, I, Well, you know, look, this whole thing, this whole, and I apologize, but I am agitated by this whole thing because this is all we've heard out of, and I know you're a former teacher. and involved in this whole process. But all I hear is how our kids...

are being mistreated. They're going to die in the streets. They don't have shoes. They don't have desks. They don't have pencils. They're going to eat the paper on the wall because they're so hungry and we haven't taken care of them. And yet when we find out the true numbers. You know, and it's the thing about we're going to lay off 400 teachers. What they don't tell you is 320 of those positions are unfilled.

And so, you know, we're only laying off a fraction of that, but they'll tell you the number like it's God's own truth. I mean, I just get so sick and tired of the deception and the lies and the manipulation of the public. That's what it is. It's a manipulation of the public and of the narrative that is a half-truth that they can go back later and say, well, we know it. We just, you know, we're just telling. I mean, they know that they're manipulating people. That's what kills.

Welcome to politics. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, but it doesn't, I don't have to be happy about it because I think it's quite honestly, I think it's bullshit. I think the whole thing is total and complete and utter BS. that anybody would look you in the eye and say something like that. They need to be punched in the throat. Sorry. That's just I said it out loud because that is just a manipulation of the public.

to then try and bilk those public funds out of people by telling those lies. It may just be politics, but it's a whole thing. Anyway. Hi, Mike. Welcome to Wednesday, baby. Buckle up. It's going to be fun. Are you ready? I'm ready. Okay. All right. I'm going to pull you back into the green room so I don't say anything else inappropriate. Inappropriate. Total and... Otter!

That's what it is. It's just total and utter. That was just BS. All right. I mean, how these people can look in the camera, look in the eye and say these things. knowing that they're not, if not absolutely false, they are outright misleading. That's the thing. Okay, I'm going to try and calm down here. Those people, thank you, Anthony, those people are called sociopaths, MD.

Wasn't, I mean, wasn't that the study that came out here? I don't know. I talked about it probably 15 or 20 years ago, talking about sociography, where they discovered that the vast majority of people who are in. You know, higher bureaucracies or elected offices are basically they have all the characteristics of sociopath.

narcissism you know narcissistic self-interest and you know they just they don't care they'll tell you whatever they want to hear And Sourdough Steel just says schools using schools, using schools, using children as propaganda meat shield. You want to know why those kids at the Wasilla were acting the way they're? Part of it is the schools. Part of it is their parents. That's the whole deal. Don't go anywhere. The Michael Duke Show.

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. 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.

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 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 uh good morning and welcome to the program hour two of the big radio show and I got so wound up in hour one I'm still agitated

I'm trying to calm down, though, because we've got a guest for hour two. And I don't want to go sideways and blow a gasket on something else. So let's... Gras fruba, gras fruba, right? We're just, we're pulling it together here. We're ready to go. We're still going to talk about state business, which always has the tendency to send me over the edge anyway. But this morning we're going to discuss it. with State Senator Mike Kronk.

He joins us this morning. We're going to get a full rundown of what's going on with the budget and more. We're going to start off, though, with a latest piece. He has... He's been pushing for if the LNG line does actually appear, which, I mean, who knows at this point. If it actually does appear and I just saw him roll his eyes. If it actually does appear, he has at least he is fighting to get a spur line.

a takeoff point from the gas line coming down to, I guess, Nikiski or wherever, or Matsu, wherever it's supposed to end up at. going out to Fairbanks so that Fairbanks can have access to the gas. as well. Let's bring on Mike Kronk onto the program to discuss it and see what he has to say about that and other things this morning. Good morning, Senator. How are you?

I'm doing good, Michael. How about yourself? Good. You, you enter at your own risk this morning, my friend. I just want to throw that out there and tell you that, uh, warning, warning is this joke should come to the warning label. it's funny you say that because my daughter texted me last night she goes oh boy you're you're pretty brave to get on the duke show tomorrow he's we're pretty fired up so i i that's okay i'm pretty fired up about a lot of things mike you know and then you're

Your answer during the break when I was asking you about this was like, you know, and not that you're wrong. And I, you know, but your answer is, well, it's politics. And that just makes me want to just. smack somebody right in the kisser you know because you're right it is politics but we should not we should have an expectation of people being better i mean really we should have an expectation that people shouldn't blatantly lie to our face

and to put misleading stuff out there en masse to then try and deceive and inveigle people into giving them more money. That's my main reason. I'm going to stop talking about it. Let's jump into the AK LNG project. Now, I happened to look down at the green room screen when I was talking about the LNG, and even you kind of raised your eyebrows when we're like...

I don't know, Mike, how many times have you and I both heard that the LNG pipeline is going to be here next year, right? Or it's coming. It's, you know, it's going to be. So I'm a little jaded. But if it does come to pass, it obviously needs to serve.

the citizens of the state. Fairbanks, although your press release said it's the second largest, I guess it's the second largest commute. No, it's still, it's the third, but it's okay. Whatever it is, it's huge compared to most other places in the state. And it needs, you know, Fairbank spends 10% of its income on energy compared to 3%. of what the average is across the country. The average community will spend 3% of its overall GDP or income on energy, and Fairbanks spends 10%.

I mean, it's one of the reasons why I moved out of Fairbanks. I saved $5,000. In like the first year, just on utility payments alone, when I moved down to the Matsu. So I understand that. So talk, walk us through this. What is the possibility you think of the actual LNG line working or coming or happening? And then what have you done to try and guarantee this takeoff into Fairbanks?

I would say, just trying to listen to all the conversations. We actually had a conversation with the governor last week about this. Again, I don't want to say anything that we've heard before, but we are literally closer. to this happening in reality than we've ever been so i guess you know fingers crossed there but um you you realize that myself and uh rep staff both have put this you know uh the spur line off the fairbank

just to highlight it and make sure that if this does get built, Fairbanks is not left out of the equation. As you know, we've got some of the higher energy costs. in an urban area in Alaska. So that's kind of our message there is to make sure that this cannot be built without a spur line being built. Well, again, because it's ultra important. I mean, right now we're basically the only gas that Fairbanks is getting is getting it's getting trucked in. Right. I mean, it's still.

They are bringing some gas, but the gas is not at the same level. Basically, they're pricing the natural gas at just under. because of the cost of trucking and everything. And so there is no cheap, affordable energy in the interior. There's also, of course, the problem with the air quality and everything else. And there's knock-on effects of, you know, burning wood and doing all these other things. If they had cheap, affordable energy, if my heating bill...

And just as an example, my heating bill went from, well, at minimum several hundred dollars a month in the winter. At one point that winter before we moved away, my heating bill one month when it was. 60 below or colder for more than three weeks at my house my heating bill was fourteen hundred dollars just for heating fuel And it went down to 200 bucks down in the Mat-Su.

Just think of the money that would be freed up in the community and maybe the economic growth that could happen on something like that. Now, you have to get the gas there and you have to get it there in an economical fashion, but it would be a tremendous boost to the economy of the interior.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you know, everybody with lower energy costs, you know, there's every, you know, realistically, all costs should be lower, you know, I mean, it's doors, everything has lower costs, we should have that. But I'm even, you know, I was talking when it ripped staff yesterday, it's like, how do we you know if we're going to build something like this how do we make sure a majority of alaskans truly truly benefited the gas is ours right so how do we make sure that

The gas being used in Alaska for Alaskans is the lowest cost possible. I don't really care what they want to charge people to export the gas out. But how do we get this gas into people's homes for electric rates at the lowest cost possible? Even if that means, I know everybody looks at revenue all the time, even if that means losing some revenue to the state.

It's not really a loss as long as the people are benefiting from that because we've never truly done anything for Alaskans and I want to see this project. a true project for the majority of the last obviously we can't Make these savings go all across Alaska, you know with so many remote villages, right? But how do we make this? the most of a benefit for all people. Right. Well, because the Constitution says that they are supposed to develop the resources to the maximum benefit.

That's the wording. It doesn't say maximum tax revenue. It doesn't say maximum amount of money. It is the maximum benefit to the people. And unfortunately, the economics are what's gotten in the way. We've got 17 trillion cubic feet of gas on the North Slope. I mean, more than almost any place else on the planet.

And yet we don't have access to it. And it's all because of the financials and the economics of trying to get it down to a place where it's usable. And you're right. Maybe if we got it, you know, if if it took. removing royalty or took removing, maybe that's an option so that we can have access to our own resource in that regard. But the bottom line is, is we've got to find a way to get the major pipe built. That's the major investment.

Now, you're in the legislature. Maybe you're a little more high level, a little more plugged in than I am. Are you hearing anything? I mean, we're hearing all this, you know, Glenn Farn and this and the president and national security and everything else. And we're hearing a lot of lip service now, Taiwan and South Korea there. But it's all just, you know, something on paper that says, yes, we'd love to buy your gas. There's no commitment to.

No commitment for steel, no commitment for money to invest in a pipeline. There's no nothing that I've heard. Have you heard anything? Is there, you know, is there any movement in one way or another on this? heard the same snippets you've heard mike um no i can't say i have So I applaud the move to make sure that we have a takeoff point. And quite honestly.

As we come down from the North Slope, There should be takeoff points in every community that's even close or at least the option to have a, you know. a takeoff point landing site where if the community decides they want to bond or build a build a feeder pipe to the pipeline or what i mean i think that that should be part and parcel of the project even if it adds a little cost Every community on the way down should be able to have access to it on the way there.

Um, I think that that's a, I think that would be a major thing. I mean, you got the Nana, you got, you know, wherever they're running the pipe, if they're running it parallel to the highway or to the, um, or to the pipeline itself, anywhere they're running it. Yeah. They should have access to it one way or the other. Yeah, I brought that up. I heard the only issue about that is being such a highly pressurized system that you really can only have a couple takeoff points in the line.

That could be a problem. Obviously, I have no idea about that part of the gas pipeline and the aspects of that. But when I did ask about that, that could be one of the concerns of you can't have too many takeoff. Well, maybe get two, one in Fairbanks, one in Denali.

or something along the, you know what I mean? If you get two, then if you need to run feeders to every, you know, you do what you need to, but at least have some access. It shouldn't be at the top and at the bottom and that's it, right? Somebody in the middle of that 800 miles needs to have access to it. And it makes sense. So is this a bill form and is it on the floor? What's happening with this?

We heard it and said it at resources the other day and on Monday. And literally, we just got word that they will kick it out of resources on Friday. Okay. So it'll be right to finance. So it's going to finance. Okay, so it is coming. Is it a financial bill or is it just say we need that? There's a zero fiscal note, so we may just go right to the rules.

Okay. All right. So again, just, and this is because it's a resolution or is it a bill? It's a, it's a legislation. It just has a zero fiscal note. Okay. Zero fiscal note. Okay. So it's a mandate. It's a statutory mandate. but it doesn't have any costs associated with it. It basically says you shall, right? That's what it is. Yeah, you will. It will happen. It will happen. If the line is built, it will have a takeoff.

So good for you. That's a, you know, that's a good idea. All right. We're coming up on the break. I want to get into... I want to get into the majorities, the House majorities presser yesterday and some of the things that are being said from the Senate majority as well. And I want to get your take on it as a former.

representative and now is a senator. I want to get your take on that and where you think we're going. Mike Cronk, Senator Mike Cronk is our guest. We're going to continue with him here in just a second. And we're going to talk about the budget, the PFD, the school funding, and more. We'll be back right after this. Back in just a moment. Running on 100% pure beard power. Oh, also some coffee. We dip our beard in coffee. Ha, nice beard. The Michael Duke Show.

Okay, we're in the break right now. Mike Kronk is our guest. And Rob clarifies, he says, it mandates that the Fairbanks spur gets rolled into the cost of the main line. Right, right. There's no additional fiscal note to it. It's just saying it shall be part of the plan when it's all said and done.

I saw, where was it? Uh, too many comments here. Bring the line to Fairbanks. Bringing the line to Fairbanks guarantees a customer base. It's bad economics to cut off Fairbanks. Yeah. I mean, it doesn't, it doesn't make any sense. You've got to. You got to burrow 90,000 people there that would have plenty of uses for natural gas in a variety of ways. Not, I mean, first and foremost, to mention that, you know, GVEA, if they had access, if they could convert to gas.

For their turbines, it would drop their electrical costs tremendously. And then it would be, I mean, I looked at natural gas before I left town. Because they had just literally the year before I left, they dug up my yard and put the IGU, put in the gas pipes and everything else. But the cost difference, I mean, it would take me a decade to pay off the conversion cost to move from heating oil to natural gas.

And then I'm at the then I'm at the mercy of whatever they decide the natural gas price is going to be. I have no choice to, you know. And so I never converted because it didn't make any sense. because the pricing of the gas was, like I said, just below heating oil at that point. And that's been the big problem. That's why IGUs had such a hard time. It's one of the reasons why I was never supportive of it, because it was never going to make sense until...

We actually had a gas line that was touching Fairbanks, right, Mike? Yeah, no, correct. I agree. It's, you know, and I know me and Representative Stafford are talking about possibly figuring out somehow to add maybe an amendment to. whatever taxes are pulled from the line, that could go into a fund that helps build out the infrastructure in the Fairbanks area.

If a ratepayers are gonna pay for it, they're not gonna save money, right? I mean, we all know that that's just not gonna happen. So how do we again? How do we best use this resource for the people of Alaska? And I think that should be all of our, you know, should be high on everyone's list and making sure that.

Right. No, I mean, we all want to have access. If we all are owners and we are under this constitution, I didn't build it. I didn't write it. I didn't, you know, I didn't have a say during statehood when the federal government yoinked all the mineral rights away. and made it a condition of statehood. So we're living under this quasi-socialistic...

you know, constitution. I didn't, but we got to live with it. So since we're all owners, we should be our first best customers, right? We should have access to our own resource first. And so not surprising that that's where we're at. Unfortunately, again, the economics are getting in the way.

While I understand, you know, I know that sounds like it goes back on my argument earlier about the Cook Inlet gas where I said import because it makes more sense. But the economics of that makes sense in the short term versus the long term because we've been being. promised a gas line for 50 years. 50 years it's always oh in just a few years oh in just a few more years Again, I'm always reminded Jim Whitaker's office sitting in his office and he had a framed.

newspaper behind the wall and it said gas line gas next year or whatever is a gas line from 1959 the paper was that there was going to be a gas line from the north slope somewhere down to And it's just never happened. And that's where we are today. We are. All right. I'm just looking to see if there's any other comments here that are pertinent. IGU, already a customer base. There are people that use gas in Fairbanks. Yes, there are. There are people that Fairbanks use gas in Fairbanks.

One of the challenges, though, that I always was worried about was that if they were able to get widespread gas in Fairbanks, they would absolutely mandate that everybody get on it because of the air quality issue. That's a whole separate show right there. That's a whole separate show.

that if they mandate that you couldn't do anything because you had to get on gas because that was the cleanest. But that's a whole different show. That's a different problem to have. At least it would be a little cheaper in the long run if we had access to our own gas. All right, Mike Kronk is our guest. We're going to continue. Let's get back to it.

The Michael Duke Show, Common Sense, Liberty-based, free-thinking radio. Do me a favor, please. Like and share this show. Like and follow the show page. Share it with everybody wherever you're watching. That's how we get more people involved in this process. We need more folks to be paying attention. Let's get to it. Common Sense, Liberty-based, free-thinking radio. Here we go. The Michael Duke Show. Not your daddy. Wait, sorry. Not your daddy? Ooh, not your daddy's.

I was scared for a second. Thought we were going down. State Senator Mike Cronk is our guest. We just finished talking about AKLNG and this proposal. What's the bill number, Mike, on this? The SB number? uh for you oh boy i i want to say 114 but i have so many bills mike i don't i don't actually remember okay all right anyway it's It's going to be coming out this week, maybe to finance on Friday. So we'll see what's going on with that. We'll keep track of it and let us know.

All right. We are moving on now to the bigger news, which, of course, is that the House. Apparently has finally finished their budget, quote unquote. But now they're stuck on the floor and they've got lots of file. And now we had this press presser yesterday where they basically said.

It's it's the minority's fault because they won't play ball with us. They won't cooperate. They won't. They need to cooperate. It's their budget, too, even though they had no input on it, even though they had, you know, all their amendments were riddled full of bullet holes and they got told to shut up and sit down. And but now it's it's there. It's their pickle, too. They all need to do it.

And we've seen this kind of stuff before. Mike, you used to deal with this when you were a representative in the house all the time, right? Getting treated like a redheaded stepchild until they needed you. And then, of course, it was all your fault because you wouldn't play night. Yeah, Michael. I do my best to stay out of what the house is doing. But yesterday's press conference, actually, I was pretty pissed off after that press conference, I'll be honest.

That was one of the most disingenuous press conferences I've ever seen from the House majority. I'll probably catch heck for saying that. That's their budget. You know, two years ago when we were in the majority in the house. Our first, you know, when the governor sent the budget with the full PFD, our first decision, which is very hard because we are the caucus of the PFD people, was to reduce the full PFD to a number where we could pass a balanced budget.

And I don't know if anybody doesn't think that's a hard choice, but that was a hard choice. That was our first thing we did as a finance committee, as a majority. And you listen to that.

what i don't even know what the name i want to call that yesterday you know they made an excuse for their majority of supporting a full pfd it's just a math problem but for my the minority like you heard oh my god i don't know how anybody could support a full pfd truly disingenuous that is their budget they own that budget we did the same thing you know very few amendments ever passed when you're in the majority and you kind of create that budget um

The first thing I would have done as a 21-19 majority is I would have been, hey, let's kumbaya, guys. Let's... We're going to be friends. We're going to do everything we can to work together. You know, we'll, we'll help each other in legislation. We'll be as friendly as possible to pass a budget. That's not how they started to show up.

Because there's some insider baseball there, what you're talking about, just so the folks that, you know, when you guys were majority, you had a bigger majority, right? 23, 24. When you've got a 21 majority. you realize that at any one point, any legislator who gets a... you know, a hair in their soup or whatever, they're like, oh, well, they can hold the whole thing hostage.

So when you're at a 21 to 19 majority, you know at one point you're going to have to work with a minority. So you shouldn't sideline them. There's some strategy here. And their strategy was dog crap. They basically treated you like they would have if they had a 25 vote, if they had a 25 majority, because then they could have done anything they wanted and just ramrodded it through.

Uh, but now it's like 21 to 19. And now when you guys won't play ball, now it's all your fault. This is the blame game. This is the passing of the, and the shaming. And then again, like you said, kind of the dichotomy of, oh, well, it's a math problem, but we just don't understand why you want a full PFD.

Because wouldn't it be better if we just had all the money and spent it for you? I mean, that was the implication. I mean, just the audacity of somebody like Josephson saying something like that. Like, I just don't understand why you want this full PFD. Well, because it's our money. Jack, that's why we want it, because it's our money, and we do better than you at learning. We know better how we want it spent than you do.

And they just don't understand that. Now we're seeing some of the same behavior going on. in the senate uh in the past as well now they said uh gary stevens is adamant we're not going to spend from savings we're not going to and now he's saying well we're going to have to eat some crow we're going to have to make some cuts

We're going to have to do some of these other things that they said they absolutely were not going to do. What do you think is going to happen? Oh, and I guess before we even get into that, rumor has it, rumor has it that the Senate. is working on their own budget because the house has taken so long and it's such a hot, hot, sticky mess. that maybe the Senate has worked their own budget together and they might roll it up into an omnibus turducken bill.

And stuff it over into the house with a few days remaining. Are you hearing? I know you're in the minority. I know you can't speak for anybody, but you got your ear to the wall there. Are you hearing anything? Tell me what you're hearing. There's lots of rumors, obviously. This whole building is full of rumors.

Don't know if it's going to happen. I think the optics of, you know, the last time that happened when they pretty much gave us the budget, you know, when I was in the house, the Senate gave the budget, here you go, take it or leave it. I don't think they want those optics again. I think they do want to do it the right way. For the most part, the Senate majority.

especially on finance, has been very open and willing to work with myself and Senator Kaufman together. I would assume they know they're going to need some of our boats somewhere. And, you know, I think we bring We bring a different perspective to them. So I have to appreciate that part of it. But I think they'll wait. I don't think we'll turducken it. I think we'll create a budget. But I know for a fact that there's going to be some cuts.

We're going to get to work here pretty soon, and there are going to be some cuts. Obviously, all cuts hurt somebody, but we've got to get back down to funding what government's supposed to fund. and, you know, trying to live within our means, like you've always said. And I want to kind of make a joke, you know, I say, hey, it's all about resource development.

But it's not about that. My daughter said, make sure I crack that joke with you today. Oh, you're playing. You're playing today. You want to see me go stratospheric. My thing is we have all these possible taxes on the table. Everybody wants to tax here, tax there. And I'm absolutely not supporting any of them because all those taxes are pre-spent money already, right? Without a fiscal plan in place. And I said, we need a constitutional spending cap. The POMV draw is not a spending cap.

We need parameters and that's one of the things our school districts and other people have came in and said, how do we help you? I said, you help us. Get a fiscal plan. If you want us to help you, let's get a fiscal plan in place where our numbers all fit in this group of numbers. then we can work from there. And they were pretty receptive to that. But this fool's game of building a budget on oil prices up and down is so frustrating.

I mean, let's go back to your joke, because I think, you know, it is the funny thing. I mean, what I've said is. and probably why your daughter was like, oh, dad, you got to say this, is because I said, I'm tired of, because there's been several Republicans on this program who've said, well, the answer is more resource development and more resource revenue. But it doesn't fix the problem, Mike. The problem...

Well, you've been in the legislature long enough. Is it a spending problem or is it really a revenue problem? I mean, to me, this has been a spending problem for so long, it's actually created the revenue problem. And if we generate more revenues... They're just going to spend it anyway.

I mean, with the spending, the velocity of the spending will remain the same regardless of what revenues we put in there, whether, you know, they just don't seem to think that there is a problem at all. I mean, up until this year. I mean, like I said, all of a sudden, many of the legislators look at the camera and gasp and go, oh my gosh, we're in a crisis. We're broke. Have you not been looking at the numbers for the last five, six years? I mean, was it a shock to you that we're broke, Mike?

I think part of the research development thing is we have President Trump in office right now, and we know that's a big push to get that, obviously. But we know for the most part, most research development is years out, right? I'm with you, and I think everybody that says resource development that I know of is in the same boat. We have to have parameters in place. It doesn't matter what resources we develop because it's going to get spent.

It's already pre-spent. In somebody's mind, we're going to spend this money. We are in trouble as a state because, I mean, you know as well as I do, how do we ever fix anything that we have in the state? You know the deferred maintenance list is off the charts. You know we're going to have to build new schools. Where do we pay for it all? There's no vision for the next 20 years of paying for things that we are required to pay for.

And that means you have to have a spending camp in place. That means you have to have some money set aside to actually be able to take care of these things. But we got no vision and it's just, hey, let's do this next year and let's do this next year and let's do this next year. It's very frustrating.

to do that. You're trying, you're literally trying to make blood shoot out of my eyes by mentioning deferred maintenance at the same time that we talk about recently. Cause again, I don't know if people have heard this number before. 10. billion dollars in deferred maintenance in this state on state facilities. And that can be laid back directly at the feet of the legislatures and the bureaucracies and the departments for deciding that some other project.

Some other thing needed that money more than fixing the roof or doing the whatever or doing the hot fixes on some structure, building, facility, whatever. They decided that the money was better spent on some other widget or program. $10 billion in deferred maintenance in this state on top of everything else. That's a whole nother show, Mike.

But you're right. You're right. And this is the thing. This is Parkinson's principle for government. You know, Parkinson's principle says that work will fill up, will... will grow to fill all available time or whatever. Parkinson's principles for government is that basically spending will grow to take every available dollar. We have no fiscal discipline in this state. And I've seen a lot of the proposed spending caps that have come out in the last few years.

And they would be me. Some would be a little better than we're. But we need a spending cap that basically takes the PFD out, keeps the other things out and basically says this much and no further with no extra caveats and bells and whistles, because otherwise. I mean, we've got a spending cap on the books right now. How's that working out for us? Right?

Statutory caps. They just statutory. We're the legislature. We don't have to follow the law. We write the damn law. We can do whatever we want unless it's constitutional. Although now I'm seeing that they're ignoring constitutional. I mean, by the Constitution, isn't our capital budget supposed to be one third of the overall budget by the state constitution?

I believe so. I'm waiting. I know Senator Bishop highlighted that a couple of years ago. Yeah. So, I mean, you know, at some point you just got to say, if we're just going to ignore the law, we're making up the rules as we go along. How are we supposed to have any confidence in any of the things that are going on?

I can only imagine the frustration. I know if I wasn't in the legislature, if I hadn't even touched doing this job, I would probably feel the same frustration you do. I mean, I do feel the frustration down here.

I don't ever feel like I'm a politician. I still feel like I'm just a regular citizen that's down here trying to fight those forces of doing something that... the people want right you know and and we you know we really need as a state we need a vision we need a plan that we have to stick to we don't get this just to keep spending money wildly and for somebody's new project we we have a lot of things we have to take care of

And without that vision and without that planning, this is what it's going to be every single year. And we know for a fact the next two fiscal years are probably going to be worse than this one. realistically they're gonna be worse i mean oil you you can see check oil prices right now and i'm like good god guys we can we do something now Yeah, no. I mean, that's exactly it. And anybody who has been looking at the governor's 10-year projected forecast knows that the next five years.

are going to be excruciatingly tough. I mean, they are going it's going to get worse. And as Trump has said, he wants to. depress oil prices, to help with inflation, to help the average person, and the average consumer is helped by low oil prices. The only entity in this room that's not helped is the state of Alaska. Right. And so we've got a crisis that's just going to get worse.

And it's just now in the 11th inning that they've decided, oh, we have a crisis. Maybe we should cut. I mean, we've been talking about this for years on the program. Mike Kronk is our guest. Mike, we're up against the break. Hold the line. Senator Kronk from up in the interior. We're going to continue with him here in just a moment. We've got one final segment coming up. We're going to talk about what he thinks about the size of the PFD.

what the school funding should be, and more. We'll continue. State Senator Mike Cronk, our guest, The Michael Duke Show. Common sense, liberty-based. 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. Mike Cronk is our guest. He says he's going to probably catch heck for saying what the...

Saying what everybody else is thinking out loud that this mealy mouth presser was just like, I mean, this scolding from on high about how dare you. I'm going to pull some audio bites out of this. We're going to go over this a little bit tomorrow. Mike, this stuff has got to stop. We've got people who have been in the legislature in both chambers, in both parties.

for 30 years 20 to 30 in one i think it was isn't the hoffman been there for like 38 years So, you know, to say all of a sudden that they are shocked, I tell you, I'm totally shocked that this is going on. is disingenuous at best because they they are they Are they not reading the briefings? Are they not reading the DNR reports, the 10-year forecasts? Are they not reading the tea leaves? As flawed as some of this data can be, and as speculative as some of this data can be,

The one thing that has been pretty consistent over the last five or six years is that 10-year forecast. It's been... pretty accurate, if not in actual numbers, at least in the trending, you know where it's going and it's trending for the next 10 years down. And they're acting like, well, I just can't believe that we're out of money.

I hate to see how you run your household if you're shocked that you're out of money at this point. I mean, should we not be? I know you're saying, you know, you feel the frustration and everything else. Should we not be outraged when the politicians who've been in charge for 20 or 30 years are now acting surprised that this is what's happening?

Yeah, you should be frustrated, Michael. I just think people get caught up in doing what they've always done, what they're used to doing, right? I came down and actually had some conversations about that. This isn't working. Just because it's what you've always done, there's no reason not to fix it. There's no reason to step out of the box and not work on something that's going to work.

you know and it's no different than you know say the education system right i mean from the first day i taught in 1992 to 2017 the whole education system has changed you're adapting you're changing with it And the same thing needs to happen with the state here. We need to adapt and change on how things are changing across the world and in our country and our state.

I think we just get focused on, well, we've always done it and this is how we're going to do it. Trying to break that mold is very difficult. Having new ideas is very difficult to sell those new ideas. I don't want to fault them because that's what they've always done. that's like trying to you know that would be like me trying to trying to change my dad's mind you know he's he's 80 85 years old just like

Yeah, I'm probably not going to change his mind, but you know what? At least listen and, you know. Try and try to see the other side of the story right now. And that's what we're going to need. We're going to have to change. We cannot continue on this path. Well, this is part of this is part of the problem, though, if they're inflexible and I call them the business as usual crowd for a reason, because like you said.

They're baked in. This is this is how we've always done it. This is how we'll always do it. Right. But the problem is in the real world. you'd die. Your business would go bankrupt. You would not, you know, you would, if you were not flexible at all, it's like only in government is that inflexibility found and encouraged.

They have to be agile. They have to be flexible. They have to change with the times. And they act like they're completely disconnected. And in one case, they are because they're disconnected from the private economy, right? They're not drawing their tax base. from the private economy. So they don't really care what happens to the private economy. So they've lost that flexibility. But in their minds, the money will always be there until it's not.

I mean, in some ways, and we talked about this earlier this week, in some ways. I welcome when the state goes bankrupt. Because then we'll finally have to acknowledge that we have to do these things. Now, I just hope it happens before they combine the permanent fund and the earnings reserve and are able to eat all the seed corn out of the permanent fund because it'll give them, again, Parkinson's principle. If they get access to that, they'll just drain the fund.

And will prolong the inevitable demise of the state by another 10 or 15 years because they will refuse to acknowledge that there is a problem. You're not wrong, Michael. There is definitely a problem and it's something that we truly need to address. And it's a matter of having the people at the table that are willing to say, okay, we have a problem. And I agree, the problems here, it's not going away. This is just going to get worse and worse.

as we progress the next few years you know and i think everybody sees that little blip on the radar and like you know 2035 where oil revenue is going to go back up and maybe we'll have a million barrels of oil back in a pipeline well we can just just go right back to doing what we're doing versus putting a plan in place to build the future of Alaska to make sure we have a place for our kids and grandkids.

Well, that's the thing. It's the old bumper sticker that you and I probably remember this said. God, please grant us another pipeline boom. We promise not to piss this one away. I mean, that was the old bumper sticker. And it's still true today. I mean, it is the truth today.

Because if we have the same mindset now that we did then, we'll do exactly the same thing and we'll be right back here if we do end up with another boom. Mike Kronk, our guest. Let's get back to it. The Michael Duke Show, Common Sense Radio. 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. More.

M-O-A-R. More. That's what the state wants. All the time. That's all they're asking for. Is more. Business as usual, that's what they try and do, but they have to be flexible. They have to be agile. And they have been inflexible, and they've decided that they know better than, you know, you know. They know better than you how to spend it. Mike, we're now into the final weeks. I mean, if...

The legislature would follow the law. We'd only have 11 days to get this done at the 90-day mark. But we're going to go out to May because statutes. Who needs to follow statutes? Will of the people? Pshaw. They don't know anything. So here we are. We've got a budget. We've still got the education funding question.

Defined benefits, that's got real quiet because I don't think anything's going to... They're so absorbed in the PFD budget and schooling debate, I don't even think the defined benefits thing with its fictitious fiscal note...

It's even going to make it anywhere. Maybe you can tell me what your thoughts are on that. But overall, the budget, the PFD and the school funding are the big things. Now, on the school funding, the Senate's already made noises that a thousand dollar increase is not going to happen. In their minds, we are hearing 680. We're hearing all these other things.

Do you think that that whatever funding increase it ends up being, do you think it should be inside the formula or outside the formula, especially based on what we just talked about of what's coming in the next five years? Should we be committing future legislators for the foreseeable future? To an additional amount of spending, be it $680 or $1,000 per student BSA increase? Or should it be one-time funding? And what do you think the magic number is?

Tough question Mike. You know I have 11 school districts that I represent and most of them are all rural school districts you know besides the North Star Borough. You know, and I served on the regional school board also at this, you know, for a couple of years. So I kind of have a pretty good take on this. You know, the one time funding is difficult for them, you know, especially, you know, in the more rural districts.

I don't know what the number is going to be. Watching oil prices drop, I think ANS was yesterday at $65 a barrel. we still have three months in that fiscal year right and so i'm just not sure what the senate's going to decide to do i mean obviously they put himself in the box because all the anchors legislators said they promised one thousand dollars

I mean, that was a promise, which I've never made a campaign promise because you're just one person down here. You can't possibly follow through on a promise like that. I think it's going to get very interesting. I'm definitely okay with the 680. It's because we had last year, and I know the cost, honest cost to some of our school districts. I've seen what Fairbanks has done. They have stepped out of the box and made insanely hard decisions.

Were they the right decision? Most likely because they were trying to right size. But what you haven't seen is Anchorage. What you haven't seen is Kenai doing any of these right size. And they're just down here. We need more money. But they haven't right sites Fairbanks has led by example and they've really done their best at a behest to some of the members, you know, will they get reelected? I hope that people see that they did the right thing for their community.

I don't even want to predict at this point. I'm not in the majority to figure out what the number is going to be. I do know that some of our school districts do need the funding and some of them are very dishonest. I just think it's, you know, status quo. But you said you're okay with 680, which is what? $220 million. 175 175 okay thank you for correcting me um but would you be okay with it as one-time funding versus

encumbering future legislatures and exacerbating the problem? Because those 10-year numbers that we talk about, we keep talking about from the governor's forecast. That's assuming a pretty static spend. It increases slightly, but it does not include another $170 million per year on top of that. Would you be okay with just the one time instead of baking it into the formula?

I'm probably going to be open on either one of them just because I just don't know what the Senate's going to do. I'm really kind of just... confused at what's going to happen. I mean, literally, I wish I could predict. So I'm going to, I'll say I'm probably okay with either one. I don't want to. I really don't want to do this to encumber future legislatures, especially with the price of oil and the struggles we're going to have.

But I also know that, again, I represent 11 school districts and I believe every one of them has been truly honest about their numbers and what they can't do and having that inside the BSA for them. is the real thing. So, I mean, I'm going to roll either way, whatever the budget comes out to be. Not that I have to vote for the budget, right? That's one of the beauties of being in the minority. I don't have to vote for it one way, but I think the pressure is truly on.

the majorities to see if they will fulfill those promises and then obviously they're going to leave it up that they could be leaving it up to the governor to be the bad guy again i'll i'll be honest and i i think that's my That might be how it ends, to be honest with you. It's hard to predict. I just don't know. I really don't. West Texas Intermediary, which is a good indicator of ANS. uh, Alaska North slope crude is currently at $57. Okay. 57 bucks. And, uh, so.

I mean, I'm going to take issue with you on saying you're good either way, because to encumber future legislators with the amount of uncertainty that we have right here, to me, seems right. It really does seem reckless to say you're guaranteeing to pay this $170 million plus every year for the foreseeable future. And we don't know what next year is going to bring other than we know the deficit is going to be deeper than it is this year.

And so, you know, while I can understand spending the $170 million as a one-time funding, because then we could come back and revisit it, taking it off the table for next year's discussion. is reckless mike i really i think it is Fair enough, Mike. I'm not disagreeing with you. I just know that. The districts I represent have a lot of issues we have a lot of old schools there's a lot of money going into those schools. and the one-time funding doesn't sustain them for that.

And I do believe they've been very honest. I've checked their numbers and I have those conversations. Unfortunately, it's not a number that we can just separate out districts that I think are being up and up with the legislature. You can't just say, well, you only get this because you've done the work.

um everybody gets it and uh so i i i you know i appreciate your your honesty and i'm trying to be as honest as possible with our people um just i i do think they've done the work and it's something that we are responsible for paying um it's gonna be hard all around and i look at west coast oil yesterday was 65 so we're it's it's going down yeah a week ago. It's going down rapidly as we go through. It was $67 yesterday.

Uh, and now it's 57 for the same crude Brent is at 60. So add a couple bucks and that's probably where ANS is going to end up at. So it's just. I'm just saying. No, it's not. The PFD. We're not going to get a statutory PFD. I don't think there's any way that's going to happen. $1,000. I know that's the number that's been floated around. Is that what you're hearing or what do you think?

You know, and obviously you hear the house side, but I just can just echo what I've heard in the Senate side, and they are pretty firm on it, you know, the 25-75, which would be... 1440, 1450. they're pretty firm on that number, you know, and I believe they're going to try to get to that number one way or another, which I, you know, at least I appreciate we're sticking to something, right? It's not a...

8713 or something. The House was just like, hey, let's fill our budget and we'll just reduce it to whatever for the majority over there. So at least I appreciate the Senate trying to focus on a number you know that's something that we haven't seen so at least i can you know have the respect for that is it enough i i would love to pay the 38 you know hundred dollars but you know that's 2.4 billion dollars

I am not sure how we fund the budget. That would act as a de facto spending cap, though, wouldn't it, Mike? I mean, they'd have to take a hard look at everything else they were doing. I mean, really, if that if that was the case and they treated it as it was supposed to be treated as a shell transfer. And that money went into that other account and disappeared. Then they'd have some hard questions and they would be having to ask themselves those questions.

Yeah, this was interesting, Mike. I went back and looked at the pre-permanent fund total of a state budget. So starting at fiscal year 16. it was 5.3 billion and then 17 it was 4.4 and then 4.3 4.6 4.6 4.5 5 4.8 4.9 uh 5.1 and so and in this year's projected when it was 4.9 billion right um so we're pre-permanent fun state spend.

really hasn't increased a whole lot if you look over the last 10 years. In fact, the locker year was the highest, 5.3 billion was the highest spend we've had. We've actually lowered or held steady. for the last 10 years when we look at you know pre-permanent fund spend um the biggest year was i think in fiscal year 22 where we had a that 2.1 billion dollar permanent fund and then another we had a huge capital budget 752 million um so that was the largest you know year we've had but

We've actually held quo on spending for a long time. Of course, the problem is we started accounting for the PFD in the budget instead of making it a transfer, and that skews the numbers as well. Mike, final thoughts real quick, 30 seconds. Mike, I just appreciate having you on the show. I mean, I look forward to the next, I don't know, what do we got? 40 days, 50 days, whatever it is left to hopefully sit down, make some cuts and make the right decisions for the future.

You know, we're either going to do it now or we're going to suffer for the next three or four ten years. Like you said, it's not looking any better. State Senator Mike Kronk, our guest, The Michael Duke Show. Common Sense, Liberty-based, free-thinking radio. Tomorrow, the press conference. We'll discuss and more.

All right, Mike, one final bite at the apple. I give it to you here. I mean, you know, I'm not trying to be mean and I'm trying to be as gentle as possible, but I I'm really worried that. We will commit to something that we cannot fulfill and it will just exacerbate the problem. Would I be okay with an increase in a one-time funding? Yeah. I mean, if it has to be, it has to be. I know that there are some problems. I also know that there's a bunch of school districts.

who are basically just, it's a money grab for whatever they can get. They're not making the hard choices, right? They're doing things that are blatantly flying in the face. They're hurting people intentionally to try and garner support. It goes back to what we were talking about at the very beginning of the show. But to commit. future legislators and to just create a problem on top of a problem we already have.

seems like the wrong call to me. And with all respect, I think that that is a huge mistake because it'll be so much harder to undo it down the road if it is committed. um as part of a formula or something that's formulaic and can't be touched without some big folder all it'll just it just compounds the injury at that point Mike, I totally respect that. There's lots of opinions out there and I do respect that. Again, I don't have the magic wand. I don't know what's going to happen.

I do know, you know, as an educator, I do know, and in a regional school, I know some of the financial issues that we, you know, they are having. And I do know the repercussions of, you know, like you said, committing this to future legislatures is we're going to pay this.

The issue is not going away. We're going to hear this over and over. And I have to share one thing. We had some of the people that are advocating for this down here. And I actually called them out on a meeting. It's like, you know what? All I've heard is. Wow, we support all these schools, correspondence, homes, you know, homeschool, charter schools, public schools, boarding schools.

They're shame people are trashing homeschool correspondence kids. And I take offense to that because I have a lot of those kids in my district through Raven and Galena idea and stuff. And their response was, yeah, we haven't seen any of those things. And we haven't heard any of those kind of comments during a committee. you know committee meetings and I was blown away because that's all we've heard was total bashing of homeschool correspondence.

Kids. Those are all our kids. We need to take care of every single kid. Parents, they want to educate them. It's super frustrating for me. And it's 25, almost 30% of the overall schooling population. You're going to trash 25 to 30% of the schooling population because you don't like the fact that you don't have control of the money, which is essentially what they're saying. Well, we don't have any control.

And you know what it's going to do? It's going to create an even bigger correspondence population, Mike. That's what's going to happen. I agree. They won't read the damn room. They won't look and say, well, why? They won't ask the question. There's no self-reflection. Why has this population grown so dramatic? I mean, it's exploded. Sure, COVID had something to do with it, but it's even more than that. Why has it exploded?

They won't ask that question. They just immediately attack and take attack. That's a whole nother show, Michael. Yeah. Oh, it is. And we should, you and I should have that show because I think that is part of the problem. No self-reflection on why things are going badly. Instead, they double down on the behavior.

Either by, you know, chastising and criticizing and or in the case of some of these school districts, just flat out confusing and vagaling, deceiving, lying about it. Just shut up and give us more money. We don't want to talk about policy. Just shut up and give us the money. And now the new mantra, what's the new mantra?

We're not failing. We're starving. That's what that's what the new mantra is. We're not failing, even though we you know, we've had more money in 2015. We had the most per capita in the nation. We were still in the bottom of the barrel academically. But we're starving. That's the problem. It's lies. It's mismanagement that nobody wants to do any kind of self-reflection on.

Yeah. And if they really, you know, like I said, if the NEA really cared, where's their ideas of how we how we improve education? There are none. There's no policy coming from this. More money. We need more money. There's no policy. And there's no understanding of the fact that we are tight with money.

You shouldn't be out there asking for 20% increases immediately for some of your negotiating right now. Right, right. It's absurd. Read the room. I mean, seriously, we're in the crapper and you're like. Oh, yeah, I think we should get a 20% increase every year for the next five. I mean, are you kidding me? Are you serious about this? Because it sounds like to me like you're not negotiating in good faith. Nope, not at all. Yeah.

Well, Mike, yeah, that's a whole nother show. We need to talk about it because, I mean, you know, I homeschooled all five of our kids. I mean, I did and my wife. Well, we did together, but she was mostly responsible for it. And they turned out all did very well. They're all they all did very well, even as poor of teachers as we were. They did they did exceptionally well. And the fact that they're out there castigating.

homeschoolers, correspondence schoolers, and everything else when statistics show that They're better than the rest of the students in the long run. I mean, not better as people, but as academically better. That's a problem because that just shows that they have no idea what's going on. No idea at all.

All right. Well, Mike Kronk, that's a show for you and I to have in the future here. Maybe after the session. I don't know. But we definitely need to be discussing it. Thank you for coming on board. I appreciate you being part of it today. Thanks, Mike. Appreciate it. Yep. Thank you. Mike Kronk, our guest here on the program. All right. That's it for today. Yeah, I just, I cannot get behind the idea of putting all this in formula.

I just can't. With all respect to Mike, I cannot, cannot do it because you are basically passing the poison pill to future legislators. That's what you're doing with that, right? And it's a mistake. It's a huge mistake. Huge. All right. We got to go. Thank you, my friends. Be kind. Love one another. Live well. We'll see you tomorrow. The Michael Duke Show. Common Sense. Liberty Base. Free thinking radio.

We've shed our terrestrial radio skin, and now we are slimy lizard internet people. It's the Michael Duke Show.