An engaged Alaskan democracy

Fiscal Policy

Alaska is facing a dire fiscal crisis. We heard from Senate President Peter Micciche and House Speaker Louise Stutes on August 3, 2021. You can watch the video here.

  • ACG developed a no nonsense guide called Alaska’s Fiscal Future: Goal, Problem, and Options in August 2020.
  • Cliff Groh—ACG Board Member and a leading authority on Alaska fiscal policy—authored a guide to Alaska’s Fiscal Crisis featuring details about a workable plan along with cartoons and graphs to help explain this complex issue in a more engaging way.
  • The Institute of the North hosted and recorded an excellent series recently discussing the history and Future of Alaska’s Permanent Fund in November 2020.
  • Commonwealth North developed an online budget tool that allows you to try your hand at balancing the state’s budget. By answering a series of questions, you will gain a better understanding of the difficult decisions our legislators will be facing this year.
  • ACG has hosted many events over our nearly thirty-year history to inform Alaskans about Alaska’s ongoing fiscal challenges. You can find those and links to any video below.

Check out Vic Fischer’s testimony to the House State Affairs Committee on Tuesday, May 7, 2019. Our last living delegate to the first constitutional convention, and ACG Board Member Emeritus, spoke passionately about the constitution and the Governor’s proposed amendments.

In 2015 ISER has prepared a Fiscal Planning Model . This model is designed to help people better understand the fiscal challenges Alaska’s state government faces, Scott Goldsmith, professor emeritus of economics at ISER, has created this interactive planning model Alaskans and others can download and use to investigate for themselves the implications of different assumptions about state revenues and fiscal policies.

Alaska Common Ground worked with the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy to produce two papers on taxation in Alaska, “Hard Choices: Revenue Raising Options for Alaska” and “The Impact of Three State Revenue Options for Alaska.” These papers examined who would be most affected by the several taxation plans being considered by the legislature. You can find several papers discussing Alaska here. 

Alaska Common Ground continues to work toward the establishment of a long-term fiscal plan for the state.

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