It has been a strange and disturbing time here in Alaska these past few years. Confusing even for a lot of life-long Alaskans entrenched within the state. Very impressed with this New Yorker article. They did a great job of explaining just what's going on. Not sure how many Alaskans are here on Hubski but I'd love to hear all your opinions on this regardless of where you're from.
Not Alaskan, but I'll say I knew how this would play out as soon as I saw that Dunleavy ran on a campaign to restore the dividend without raising taxes. This is what always happens. It happened here in Virginia about 20 years ago with personal property tax, and we're still dealing with some of the fallout.
It's been really interesting for me to hear about similar stories happening in other states during the last few decades. Did they try to cut personal property tax in VA? Dunleavey just wants to cut and slash without doing any building up and our budget and coffers is already taking big hits because of his actions. A huge portion of our southeast communities has been literally stranded in their towns/villages because he decided it was right to shut down the ferry system. We are massive state, getting around isn't easy and the ferry was one of or the only option for a lot businesses in those communities to resupply. Which in turn makes the communities short supplied.
The big thing in Virginia was specifically personal property tax on cars. Because our state constitution requires a balanced budget, the money had to come from somewhere. The result was huge slashes in public services, including such gems as closing the juvenile wings of all state mental hospitals. My mom, who teaches in a juvenile detention facility, hates Gilmore more than just about any other politician; after the closure, facilities like hers were suddenly stuck trying to care for mentally ill kids without the staff necessary to do it.