Alaska is a state that has effectively "nationalized" the mineral rights within it's borders and a significant portion of the Alaskan state budget is based on the redistribution of money "liberated" from the rich (oil companies) and redistributed by way of annual checks, to the residents of Alaska - sort of like welfare for all in Alaska.
One of Governor Palin's claims to fame is "taking on" the oil companies. Her "victory" in "taking on" the oil companies was to increase the amount of money taken from the rich (oil companies) for redistribution of that wealth to the residents of Alaska.
The irony is that she calls Obama a "socialist".
Socialism is OK if you're a Republican?
Welcome to the People's Republic of Alaska, where every resident this year will get a $3,200 payout, thanks in no small measure to the efforts of Sarah Palin, the state's Republican governor. That's $22,400 for a family of seven, like Palin's. Since 1982, the Alaska Permanent Fund, which invests oil revenues from state lands, has paid out a dividend on invested oil loot to everyone who has been in the state for a year. But Palin upped the ante by joining with Democrats and some recalcitrant Republican state legislators to share in oil company windfall profits, further fattening state tax revenue and permitting an additional payout in tax funds to residents.
No wonder she is popular with voters in a state whose residents pay no income or sales taxes but are blessed with state coffers rolling in cash at a time when all other states are suffering. Indeed, when the oil companies pay more taxes to the state of Alaska, they get to write that off against their federal tax obligation, leaving the rest of us to make up the shortfall.
... more after the jump.
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