Daily Kos Alaska's license plates should read "The Welfare State"
by Proud Dependent Individualist
Simply put, Alaska has made a habit of transferring its operating costs to the federal government. The state pulls out nearly two times as much money as it pitches in to the Treasury, a drain that looks especially bad in light of the state's fiscal reality. Today, Alaska enjoys a healthy budget surplus, and it sits on a Permanent Fund of more than $39 billion. It also refuses to levy sales or income taxes on its citizens.
The dream that Ted Stevens and other founding Alaskans had harbored had been one of genuine self-determination, however fragile. Today, what has replaced it is a libertarian fantasy that political scientist Thomas Morehouse has dubbed "dependent individualism." This is largely the result of a still-pervasive Alaskan view that casts the state and its residents as aggrieved victims of the whims of the federal government, in spite of the fact that they benefit more from it financially than anyone else in the country.
In 2005, for every $4,830 of federal taxes paid by Alaskans they received $13,950 back from the government. It's Alaska's big secret.. We here in the lower 48 especially blue states are subsidizing Alaska and other "red" states.