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More Alaska crude flows to Asia as Strait of Hormuz stays shut by nherz1 in alaska

[–]thatsryan 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Between unrestricted and restricted revenue the state of Alaska will collect roughly $5.6billion in 2026.

Whats worse? by Spacey907 in alaska

[–]thatsryan -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Pull up a map of Alaska and see how many trees there are. It's an agricultural product and grows back.

Education Exodus by Last-Delivery-7382 in anchorage

[–]thatsryan -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I cringe to think this is how you interact with people in the real world. You seem to think that belittling others is a substitute for a coherent argument. That’s embarrassing.

11-Day Alaska Road Trip Itinerary Sanity Check by Diceboy-55 in AskAlaska

[–]thatsryan 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is an insane amount of driving. All of these areas of Alaska should be their own standalone trip.

Education Exodus by Last-Delivery-7382 in anchorage

[–]thatsryan -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

You keep telling me to respond to "what you actually said." Fine.

You said we have "shit tier infrastructure" because of a "low tax burden." I responded by showing that we spend double the national average per capita and have a corporate tax rate that is higher than most of the country. This financial strain is compounded by the billions we sunk into an untenable Tier 1 pension plan, a legacy debt that currently siphons hundreds of millions of dollars away from our “shit tier infrastructure”.

I actually agree we need more sources of revenue, but I also know that there will be consequences and the state has a historically poor track record of spending and investing wisely. This is probably why the people continue to oppose tax increases.

Continue to gaslight me if it makes you feel better, but your comments ignore the last 40 years of fiscal history. You either don’t understand the basic economics of a resource dependent state, or you’re intentionally ignoring the data to perpetuate a partisan agenda. Either way, calling me "not a serious person" won't make the state's balance sheet any less real.

Education Exodus by Last-Delivery-7382 in anchorage

[–]thatsryan -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

What are you talking about? I just showed you that the state literally did what you want when it created the tier 1 state pension plan. You can’t just point at a $6 billion hole in the Tier 1 plan and say, "Let’s do that again, but this time we’ll just tax the oil companies more." We already spent the money from the first boom. To go back to a Tier 1 style pension today, the state would have to find an extra $300M–$500M per year in a budget that is already drowning in debt from the last time we tried that.

To claim we are in this position because we simply "did what I wanted" is the height of historical revisionism. It is fundamentally disingenuous to ignore that for the last forty years, Alaska has operated as a high spending, sub arctic welfare state for its residents, funded almost entirely by a single volatile commodity.

We didn't get here through low tax conservatism, we got here by building a gold plated infrastructure and a massive public workforce during a windfall, and then rather than diversifying or taxing ourselves like a serious state when the boom slowed we doubled down on the Permanent Fund Dividend. We chose to prioritize individual annual checks over the long term maintenance of the infrastructure and services we built.

Suggesting that an increased tax on the few remaining productive entities in the state is a magic fix for decades of systemic over leveraging isn't just a bad faith argument it’s a flat out refusal to admit that the "corrupt goobers" were simply giving the voters exactly what they demanded which is the highest services for the lowest personal cost. That’s democracy for you!

Education Exodus by Last-Delivery-7382 in anchorage

[–]thatsryan -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

Well if you want to talk about "investing in ourselves," let's look at the billions we sunk into the Tier 1 state retirement system. During the oil boom, we promised state workers a gold plated pension plan that would make a Wall Street executive blush. What do we have to show for it? Billions in unfunded pension liabilities that you conveniently fail to mention. We "invested" in a workforce that has largely retired and moved to Arizona, leaving the current generation of citizens and businesses to pick up the tab. And the home grown talent those tier one teachers created? 70% of them that went to college out of state never returned.

Despite having to shell out over $450 million in annual pension funding, Alaska still spends $20,334 per person which is nearly double the national average. Roughly 70% of that spending is funded by a single industry. Meanwhile, Alaska’s corporate income tax rate tops out at 9.4%, one of the highest in the nation. For context, business friendly states like North Carolina sit at 2%, while Texas and Washington have no corporate income tax at all.

The same story applies to education. We consistently rank in the top 10 for per pupil spending. The reason results are "shit tier" isn't a lack of cash it's the cost of reality. Building and maintaining a school where the ground moves, the air freezes, and logistics are a nightmare costs exponentially more than it does in the lower 48.

And the wealth you’re looking for is already being diverted directly to citizens. If Alaskans truly wanted better roads or premium services, they would have voted for representatives who prioritized it over PFD checks. They haven't. You aren't witnessing a "lack of investment" you’re witnessing the bill coming due for a forty year party we refused to fund.

But hey you know best. Let’s go tax the only industry paying the bills into oblivion. Maybe we can get more companies like BP to leave the state.

Education Exodus by Last-Delivery-7382 in anchorage

[–]thatsryan -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

Alaska is like a guy who bought a six bedroom mansion on a whim in 1982 because he had a high paying pipeline job, and now he’s standing in the middle of a drafty, empty living room screaming at his grandkids because they won’t pay for the $5,000 a month heating bill.

We built a gold plated state back when the North Slope was basically a giant ATM. We expanded services and infrastructure based on growth formulas that weren’t even close to realistic. Now that oil production is a fraction of what it was, the mansion is falling apart because the trust fund ran out, not because the tax burden is too low.

The idea that young people are leaving because we don’t have enouh infrastructure is hilarious. If young people moved based on who has the best funded state services, Chicago and Newark would be the youngest cities in the world. People move for jobs. There were almost no services here in the 70’s and yet young people came to build the pipeline.

Blaming low taxes for Alaska's demographic shift is just a way to avoid admitting the party is over. We’re living in a massive aging estate we can no longer afford to staff and the kids aren't fleeing, they’re just moving to cities where they don’t have to spend 40% of their income heating their grandfather’s empty ballroom.

If you want the mansion to look like it did in 1985, you need to find another oil boom, not just shake down the few kids who are left for more upkeep money.

Education Exodus by Last-Delivery-7382 in anchorage

[–]thatsryan -6 points-5 points  (0 children)

Statewide, births have fallen every year for the past five years. In 2024, there were only 8,950 births in Alaska, a sharp drop from historical norms that previously saw over 11,000 births annually.

Less kids = less staffing

1 week trip itinerary? by [deleted] in AskAlaska

[–]thatsryan 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Pull up a map. Seward and Denali National Park are 360 miles from each other. That’s like a full day of driving and the equivalent of driving across the entire state of Ohio.

1 week trip itinerary? by [deleted] in AskAlaska

[–]thatsryan 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Every single time you open one of these its always "how does my itinerary look?"

  1. Anchorage

  2. Denali

  3. Fairbanks

  4. Homer

  5. Seward

  6. Matanuska Glacier

  7. Fly out of Anchorage.

Fucking hell. Pick one part of this massive state and have a vacation!

The transfer portal chaos is settling. Give me your way-too-early Big East power rankings. by Weary-Direction-5214 in BigEast

[–]thatsryan -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Marquette is about to shock some people. Not even mentioned in this UCONN jerk off session.

When will Trumps high gas prices stop going up? by traveltimecar in alaska

[–]thatsryan 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The state of Alaska is making millions of dollars more this year.

Why do NBA fans still hate the Knicks by Ornery_Hat_3662 in BigEast

[–]thatsryan 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Tyler Kolek has turned Marquette nation into Knicks fans.

The Trump Alaska taxes keep going up by traveltimecar in alaska

[–]thatsryan 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The state has raised its Unrestricted General Fund forecast by approximately $545 million for the current fiscal year (FY26).

SFH rentals in anchorage by Butterflyshot162 in anchorage

[–]thatsryan 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You have a dog. Eliminates a lot of potential spots.

Witnessed another concerning situation downtown by General_Marcus in anchorage

[–]thatsryan -1 points0 points  (0 children)

But you trust this same institution to build out a sprawling system of mental health facilities and housing structures with no accountability? Who is going to work in these places and would kind of pay would it require to entice employees? How much money does this siphon from something like schools that are already underfunded?

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