I always had the impression of  Alaska as being similar to Venezueal; i.e. its leaders scoring political points by dishing out oil royalty money; although I am not an expert on how it works. Could some one give me a brief explanation of how it works?  I am somewhat curious whether the checks are per family or per person.  

Earmarks are the economy in Alaska. Any way we can take them up on their offer to leave the union?

Earmarks are offensive only when someone else is the beneficiary of Federal largesse.

And wouldn't you expect that with that kind of in-flow, she would have managed to have a balanced budget in her city?

stanmvp48,

It's per person. Also, someone whose daughter lives in Alaska told me in 2005 that the Alaska Permanent Fund was paying out something below $2000 yet it's now reported that it's up to $3900. Yeah, I know. Do the math. A family of 5 receiving nearly $20,000 for doing absolutely nothing. Of course, this Republican-dominated state would decry a low-income minority getting welfare while they hypocritically rake it all in off of something that no other U.S. state receives.

The Palin's are a family of seven aren't they?  Eight if you count the fetus as a person

She headed up Ted Stevens' PAC.  Not too much technique in that.

It is per person. The dividend almost hit $2000 per person before the stock market tanked several years ago. The dividend is proportional to the 5-year running average of earnings of the Permanent Fund (the principal of the fund comes from a fraction of the oil revenues, the earnings are from stocks, bonds, etc). This year the dividend is predicted to top $2000, and the announcement will be out this week.

On top of that, this year we are getting a $1200 per person "energy rebate", which Palin pushed. She started out with a complicated scheme to subsidize utilities (energy costs were approaching ruinous levels with the long winter) and also give people some cash, but in the end the Legislature passed a simple $1200 cash handout. This is coming out of the state's huge surplus, and is supposedly a one year oinly program. Maybe the state next year will use some of the surplus to invest in hydropower or something else that will control energy costs in the long run (if the Gov and Legislature are smart).

Before you all blow a fuse about welfare (which it is, really), you should also remember that only 5-6 years ago the state was facing deficits proportionally worse than California's, so oil dependence is a two-edged sword.

Of course the Republicans and libertarians in the state don't consider handing out money to everybody to be welfare. It is only welfare (and thus corrosive to independent values) when certain other people are getting it. They consider this just everyone's share of the profits from oil production on land the state owns on behalf of its citizens.

kevincollins -

The answer to your query about the increase in Alaska's dole to its citizens probably lies in the following:

-- Over the opposition of oil companies, Republican Gov. Sarah Palin and Alaska's Legislature last year approved a major increase in taxes on the oil industry - a step that has generated stunning new wealth for the state as oil prices soared.

-- Alaska collected an estimated $6 billion from the new tax during the fiscal year that ended June 30, according to the Alaska Oil and Gas Association. That helped push the state's total oil revenue - from new and existing taxes, as well as royalties - to more than $10 billion, double the amount received last year.

-- Some of that new cash will end up in the wallets of Alaska's residents.

-- Palin's administration last week gained legislative approval for a special $1,200 payment to every Alaskan to help cope with gas prices, which are among the highest in the country.

-- That check will come on top of the annual dividend of about $2,000 that each resident could receive this year from an oil-wealth savings account.

seattletimes.nwsource.com/.../2008103325_alaskatax07.html

"It is only welfare (and thus corrosive to independent values) when certain other people are getting it."

Exactly.  Iowa farmers feel the same way about their subsidies.

This "only when other people get (or do) it" meme is interesting.  Teenage pregnancy is a national scourge in the Republican play book when it's poor minority girls having the babies, but just some private matter families deal with all the time when it's the hard right, white-bread governor of Alaska's daughter.  I doubt the many Republican's now saying "we're ok with Bristol Palin's situation" are overt racists, but they are applying a class or racial filter on this that I find appalling.  If having your daughter pregnant at 17 is a sign of broken family structures and lousy parenting in the poor neighborhoods of Chicago, then that's what it is in Juneau or Wasilla, as well.  At least those poor minority girls have the explanation of actually having grown up with scant economic prospects and a crappy school system.

Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, unless you're a white Republican, I guess.

The 1,200$ payment sounds a lot like Obama's plan, or does it?

There have actually been two changes in the oil tax regime in the last few years.

The more fundamental one was spearheaded by former Gov. Frank Murkowski. The old tax regime was per barrel, and a number of exemptions and tax breaks had been put in over the years back when oil prices were low (remember $13 per barrel?). Murkowski negotiated a sweetheart deal with the oil companies to build a natural gas pipeline to the lower 48. In that deal, they were going to get taxes frozen in for something like 30 years, and a bunch on incentives now, in exchange for them thinking really hard about building a gas pipeline in the future. The Legislature rejected the deal, but before that they did take up the oil tax revisions that Murkowski had pushed. They passed a new tax law that was based on a percentage of net profits. When oil prices surged after that, the state was awash in money.

Palin's revision of the tax law was much smaller. The first law was tainted by the bribery convictions of several Legilators, who (surprise!) had pushed for a lower tax rate. So Palin came in and told the Legislature to reconsider it -- they did, and pushed the rate up a bit. They also closed (maybe) some fairly obvious loopholes that were related to maintenance triggered by BP's big oil spill from one of their production feeder pipelines, which leaked after not having been maintained properly and forced them to spend a bundle on replacing most of their feeder pipelines.

The Sarah Palin biographical film, which wasn't shown last night thanks to Rudy Giuliani's longwinded