Comparing Trump’s $5,000 dividend to the PFD

By Larry Persily

Alaskans should know better than residents of the other 49 states when a politician is trying to buy their votes, particularly when the promise is a big fat dividend landing in their pockets.

I’d like to think Alaskans will be more skeptical than other voters of President Donald Trump’s Sept. 9 political speech at the Republican Party midterm convention in Dallas, when the promise-them-anything-but-never-deliver Self-Promoter in Chief made the news with a trillion-dollar bribe.

He thundered from the stage that if Republicans retain control of the U.S. House and Senate in the November elections, “I will issue a dividend to every adult citizen in America for $5,000, very much like a successful company will do a cash distribution to its shareholders.”

Ignore for a moment that the U.S. Treasury is not a successful company, not even a financially successful government. The government is $40 trillion in debt, borrowing money to pay its bills from anyone and everyone willing to underwrite our country’s spending.

Ignore for another moment that the president lacks the legal authority to issue a dividend on a whim, whether it’s $5 or $5,000.

But it’s hard to ignore the intent of the televised bribe. Not making any effort to hide the fact that the money is a financial enticement to vote Republican, Trump told Americans: “If the Republicans win, you win with us and you get $5,000. … It will be called the Trump Dividend.”

The White House offered no details on the newly minted Trump Dividend, much like it seldom provides details on ideas that pop into his head.

No matter to Alaskans, we should know better. We’ve been hearing candidates for public office promise large Permanent Fund dividends to voters for years, long before Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts made its first of several trips into bankruptcy.

Mike Dunleavy, who never owned a resort, nonetheless was a smart player in his first run for governor in 2018. He told Alaskans that if elected, he would see to it that they were paid back “the money owed to them after three years of dividend cuts.” Dunleavy figured it at about $3,700 per person.

The Legislature and then-Gov. Bill Walker cut back the 2016, 2017 and 2018 dividends to what was in the bank account, which was less than many people wanted. The state doesn’t have the legal option of running up a $40 trillion debt like the U.S. government.

Even with the prudent reduction, the dividends for those three years totaled $3,722 per person, close to $2.4 billion.

Dunleavy won the 2018 election, in part because of his campaign pledge of back pay for supposedly “lost” dividend dollars. He repeated the winning message of a big dividend in his 2022 reelection.

The governor was never able to make good on his dividend campaign. Maybe we could tell voters in the other 49 states not to fall for Trump’s dividend sales pitch.

The day after his $5,000 speech, Trump used fear, not a bribe, to motivate people. He told the audience to vote. And if they don’t vote, he said, they would “go to hell.”

Tough choice: Vote Republican and wait for the $5,000 check that will never arrive, or stay home and book a room in hell. Alaskans know that there are other, more honest options — they will be on the ballot in November.

• Larry Persily is a longtime Alaska journalist, with breaks for federal, state and municipal public policy work in Alaska and Washington, D.C. He lives in Anchorage and is publisher of the Wrangell Sentinel weekly newspaper.