The Weekly Top 3

Welcome to The Weekly Top 3 — our look at the top 3 things on our mind here at Alaskans for Sustainable Budgets — for the week of September 22, 2025. This week, our top 3 issues are these: 1) we explain why we think the Alaska media has completely whiffed on this year’s real PFD story (2:10); 2) we explain why the North Slope renaissance isn’t producing the benefits for Alaskans they were led to e...

Welcome to The Weekly Top 3 — our look at the top 3 things on our mind here at Alaskans for Sustainable Budgets — for the week of September 15, 2025. This week, our top 3 issues are these: 1) we explain why a recent op-ed by Senator Cathy Giessel proposes to make Alaska’s fiscal situation even worse than it already is (2:22); 2) we review recent data from the Department of Revenue that is telling...

Welcome to The Weekly Top 3 — our look at the top 3 things on our mind here at Alaskans for Sustainable Budgets — for the week of September 8, 2025. This week, our top 3 issues are these: 1) we discuss Sen. Robb Myers recent op-ed in the Alaska Landmine , which explains that the proposal to change the current two-account Permanent Fund system to a one-account system is really about protecting stat...

Welcome to The Weekly Top 3 — our look at the top 3 things on our mind here at Alaskans for Sustainable Budgets — for the week of September 1, 2025. This week, our top 3 issues are these: 1) we explain, using the Permanent Fund Corporation’s own numbers, how its high-cost “active asset management” program is failing Alaskans by badly underperforming even its own Passive Index Benchmark (2:25); 2)...

Welcome to The Weekly Top 3 — our look at the top 3 things on our mind here at Alaskans for Sustainable Budgets — for the week of August 25, 2025. This week, our top 3 issues are these: 1) we discuss some recent comments by Speaker Edgmon about the economic strains being felt by Alaska’s coastal communities and explain why, in certain real respects, they are being self-inflicted by the Legislature...

Welcome to The Weekly Top 3 — our look at the top 3 things on our mind here at Alaskans for Sustainable Budgets — for the week of August 18, 2025. This week, our top 3 issues are these: 1) we explain why the EIA’s new oil price forecast suggests Alaska is on the precipice of slipping back into a steep, deficit-driven budgetary position for the remainder of FY26 and into FY27 (campaign year 2026) (...

Welcome to The Weekly Top 3 — our look at the top 3 things on our mind here at Alaskans for Sustainable Budgets — for the week of August 11, 2025. This week, our top 3 issues are these: 1) the Anchorage business community says they are concerned about the economy but at the same time they push the revenue option that has the “largest adverse impact” on it (2:15); 2) we explain why the next rounds...

Welcome to The Weekly Top 3 - our look at the top 3 things on our mind here at Alaskans for Sustainable Budgets - for the week of August 4, 2025. This week, our top 3 issues are these: 1) we explain how the votes on the veto override do much to explain the state's deep fiscal problems (2:15); 2) we discuss again, whether they realize it or not, how those advocating for a one-account Permanent...

Welcome to The Weekly Top 3 — our look at the top 3 things on our mind here at Alaskans for Sustainable Budgets — for the week of July 28, 2025. This week, our top 3 issues are these: 1) we explain how a recent op-ed demonstrates why some legislators seem not to grasp how Alaska oil taxes work (2:15), 2) we explain why Sen. Shelley Hughes potentially has a significant leg up on fiscal issus over o...

Welcome to The Weekly Top 3 — our look at the top 3 things on our mind here at Alaskans for Sustainable Budgets — for the week of July 21, 2025. This week, our top 3 issues are these: 1) we discuss the significant state revenue downside of Conoco’s — and others’ — new exploration programs (2:07), 2) we explain, contrary to the hope of some, why the gas pipeline is not a “fix” to Alaska’s broken fi...

Welcome to The Weekly Top 3 — our look at the top 3 things on our mind here at Alaskans for Sustainable Budgets — for the week of July 14, 2025. This week, our top 3 issues are these: 1) while the OBBA increases access to potential new oil fields on federal lands, we discuss whether it will actually result in new development and, more importantly, additional state revenues (2:17), 2) we discuss th...

Welcome to The Weekly Top 3 — our look at the top 3 things on our mind here at Alaskans for Sustainable Budgets — for the week of July 7, 2025. This week, our top 3 issues are these: 1) we discuss whether Elon Musk is the new Ross Perot and what that might mean for national politics (2:09); 2) we explore how the One Big Beautiful A will affect the list of issues facing the Alaska legislature (13:1...

Welcome to The Weekly Top 3 — our look at the top 3 things on our mind here at Alaskans for Sustainable Budgets — for the week of June 30, 2025. This week, our top 3 issues are these: 1) we discuss the hypocrisy of how Alaska leaders are governing at home compared to what they say at the national level (2:10 ); 2) we look at the actual returns the Permanent Fund Corporation is earning compared to...

Welcome to The Weekly Top 3 - our look at the top 3 things on our mind here at Alaskans for Sustainable Budgets - for the week of June 23, 2025. This week, our top 3 issues are these: 1) we discuss what's driving oil prices and where they appear to be headed now in the wake of the Israel/Iran ceasefire (2:15); 2) we explain how, like the #akleg before them, the US Senate is now resorting to a...

Welcome to The Weekly Top 3 — our look at the top 3 things on our mind here at Alaskans for Sustainable Budgets — for the week of June 16, 2025. This week, our top 3 issues are these: 1) we discuss where we believe oil prices are likely headed and how Alaska could reduce the fiscal roller coaster the state’s current budget approach creates (2:09); 2) we discuss one issue that we believe should be...

Welcome to The Weekly Top 3 — our look at the top 3 things on our mind here at Alaskans for Sustainable Budgets — for the week of June 9, 2025. This week, our top 3 issues are these: 1) we discuss the issues surrounding the state’s threat to terminate the Cosmopolitan leases (2:01); 2) we explain why we believe a recent op-ed about state child care support fails to address the equally important qu...

Welcome to The Weekly Top 3 — our look at the top 3 things on our mind here at Alaskans for Sustainable Budgets — for the week of June 2, 2025. This week, our top 3 issues are these: 1) we explain why the Permanent Fund Corporation’s April results demonstrate our point about its deficient returns (2:03); 2) in the wake of the visit from three of its cabinet officials, we examine the potential impa...

Welcome to The Weekly Top 3 - our look at the top 3 things on our mind here at Alaskans for Sustainable Budgets - for the week of May 26, 2025. This week, our top 3 issues are these: 1) we walk through the sources and uses of funds in the FY26 budget, and examine who is bearing the burden created by using PFD cuts to provide nearly a third of the revenues (2:14); 2) we explain how a recent op-ed f...

Welcome to The Weekly Top 3 — our look at the top 3 things on our mind here at Alaskans for Sustainable Budgets — for the week of May 19, 2025. This week, our top 3 issues are these: 1) we explain why this year’s PFD cut — which is the 10th in a row and the largest yet — is, like the others before it, nothing more than a bailout paid for by middle & lower-income Alaska families of the Top20%,...

Welcome to The Weekly Top 3 — our look at the top 3 things on our mind here at Alaskans for Sustainable Budgets — for the week of May 12, 2025. This week, our top 3 issues are these: 1) we explain why Alaska’s current fiscal dilemma reminds us of a game of chicken and what it will take to resolve it (2:04); 2) we discuss what role the Governor should play in resolving the dilemma and why Governor...

Welcome to The Weekly Top 3 — our look at the top 3 things on our mind here at Alaskans for Sustainable Budgets — for the week of May 5, 2025. This week, our top 3 issues are these: 1) we discuss what’s going on with oil prices: what’s driving the price drop, how low could they go and how long could the price drop last (2:17); 2) we discuss the failure of those who voted for HB 57 (the permanent K...

Welcome to The Weekly Top 3 — our look at the top 3 things on our mind here at Alaskans for Sustainable Budgets — for the week of April 28, 2025. This week, our top 3 issues are these: 1) we explain how a recent op-ed by Larry Persily essentially lays out the same fiscal approach as the Legislature’s 2021 Fiscal Policy Working Group, and discuss how to implement both (2:13); 2) we discuss the impa...

Welcome to The Weekly Top 3 — our look at the top 3 things on our mind here at Alaskans for Sustainable Budgets — for the week of April 21, 2025. This week, our top 3 issues are these: 1) we discuss what the latest projections from the Permanent Fund Corporation are telling us about where the Permanent Fund is headed on its current course (2:02); 2) we examine the opportunity to make some small he...

Welcome to The Weekly Top 3 — our look at the top 3 things on our mind here at Alaskans for Sustainable Budgets — for the week of April 14, 2025. This week, our top 3 issues are these: 1) we explain the difference between an accounting balanced budget and a distributionally balanced budget and why the Legislature is continually failing to produce the latter (2:06); 2) we discuss former Sen. Joe Pa...

Welcome to The Weekly Top 3 — our look at the top 3 things on our mind here at Alaskans for Sustainable Budgets — for the week of March 24, 2025. This week, our top 3 issues are these: 1) we explain why the proposal to combine the Permanent Fund corpus and earnings reserve both puts the corpus at risk and undermines significant performance incentives for the Permanent Fund Corporation (2:14); 2) w...