10-08-2003, 12:22 PM
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#56 (permalink)
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This vexes me. I am terribly vexed.
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From the article:
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Every year, lawmakers debate whether the fund should be used to help run state government. Alaska, which has no income tax or statewide sales tax, faces chronic deficits because it relies on oil for about 80 percent of its revenue. At the end of the last fiscal year, the state had a deficit of nearly $400 million.
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"It is really important for people out here, especially those that are subsistence hunters and gatherers. They rely on that money," said Stella Havatone, secretary for the school in Shishmaref, an Inupiat Eskimo village on an island in the Chukchi Sea. "I can't imagine our people without a PFD."
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The checks are smaller this year. But "it is still free money for extra fun stuff," Manning said.
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Three cheers for statewide welfare for everyone.
/cynicysm. |
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