{"id":65378,"date":"2020-11-22T03:30:00","date_gmt":"2020-11-22T12:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/opinion\/opinion-ubi-is-needed-for-all-alaskans\/"},"modified":"2020-11-22T03:30:00","modified_gmt":"2020-11-22T12:30:00","slug":"opinion-ubi-is-needed-for-all-alaskans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/opinion\/opinion-ubi-is-needed-for-all-alaskans\/","title":{"rendered":"Opinion: UBI is needed for all Alaskans"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><ins><strong>By Chris Bush <\/strong><\/ins><\/p>\n<p>During the final presidential debate, Joe Biden said twice that he would transition the United States off of fossil fuels.<\/p>\n<p>Such a transition will be disruptive to Alaskan residents, who rely on the Permanent Fund Dividend to help make ends meet in a beautiful but rugged state.<\/p>\n<p>According to vox.com, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/future-perfect\/2019\/9\/5\/20849020\/alaska-permanent-fund-universal-basic-income\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">&ldquo;Alaska deposits at least 25 percent of mineral royalties &mdash; revenue the state generates from its mines, oil, and gas reserves &mdash; into the fund annually.&rdquo;<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Former Gov. and Sen. Frank Murkowski had this to say about what would happen to the Permanent Fund Dividend if oil revenues were cut off: <a href=\"http:\/\/keepalaskacompetitive.com\/pov-alaska-permanent-fund-dividend-at-risk\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">&ldquo;Less oil production means less state revenue. Less state revenue ultimately means no Permanent Fund dividend.&rdquo;<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Joe Biden needs to make the people of Alaska whole for a reduction in the Permanent Fund Dividend when the country transitions to renewables.<\/p>\n<p>Biden should support a Universal Basic Income of $500 per month for each Alaskan adult. For a family of four with two kids under 18, the UBI would come to $12,000, more than 300% above heir share of the dividend.<\/p>\n<p>Sen. Lisa Murkowski should demand that Biden back such a UBI. Furthermore, once that happens, Murkowski should join her allies in the Trinity &mdash; hat&rsquo;s Lisa, Mitt Romney, and Susan Collins &mdash; to caucus with the Democrats to replace Mitch McConnell, since Mitch opposes a UBI.<\/p>\n<p>Alaska&rsquo;s UBI can be a test case for the rest of the country.<\/p>\n<p>Nationally, a UBI can be paid for via tax multipliers of 81% and a microtax of four-hundredths of 1% on company and derivative assets.<\/p>\n<p><em>&#8226; Chris Bush is treasurer for the Committee for a Much Better America.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Biden should support a Universal Basic Income of $500 per month for each Alaskan adult. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":65379,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":8,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-65378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65378"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65378\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65379"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65378"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=65378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}