Opinion: Alaska’s win-win constitutional solution – Homer News

Opinion: Alaska’s win-win constitutional solution

Published 1:30 am Thursday, May 21, 2026

Alaska’s Legislature just wrapped another budget cycle with the same tired script. Cut the Permanent Fund Dividend to fund government, or cut government to fund the dividend.

Every proposal forces Alaskans to lose so someone else can win.

Senator Robert Myers captured our fiscal crisis perfectly in a recent article: “Our constitution says we are supposed to manage our resources in such a way we maximize the benefits to all Alaskans. The problem is we have defined it in such a way as to mean only the maximum revenue to the state.”

The constitutional insight points toward something Alaska has never tried: a solution where everybody wins.

Ten percent of the Permanent Fund could provide Alaska families with home mortgages at 2% interest rates. The Fund would earn market returns through mortgage payments. Families would save $330,000 over the life of a typical loan. No losers. No trade-offs. No raids.

Alaska’s Permanent Fund holds more than $80 billion. Ten percent—$8 billion—could fund mortgages for 23,000 Alaska families. Current mortgage rates hover around 7%. The program would offer 2% rates to Alaska residents buying homes in Alaska.

The math favors everyone. A family borrowing $350,000 at 7% pays $2,300 per month and $830,000 in total over 30 years. The same loan at 2% costs $1,300 monthly and $470,000 total. The family saves $1,000 per month and $360,000 over the loan’s life.

Meanwhile, the Fund earns 2% annually on mortgage payments instead of hoping for higher returns in volatile markets. Stable, predictable income backed by Alaska real estate.

The program serves exactly the constitutional purpose Senator Myers described: maximum benefit to all Alaskans rather than maximum revenue to government. Jay Hammond designed the dividend as a “resource dividend” to connect Alaskans to their resource wealth. Home ownership extends the connection to where Alaskans live and build futures.

The political advantages matter more than the economics. Homeowners vote across party lines. A program saving families $330,000 on their largest expense creates a constituency defending it aggressively. Compare the Permanent Fund Dividend — legislators cut the PFD every budget cycle because families have no organized way to fight back.

The program also addresses Alaska’s most serious long-term challenge: keeping young families in the state. A $330,000 mortgage savings gives families a powerful reason to stay and build lives here rather than seeking affordable housing elsewhere.

Traditional housing programs fail because they require subsidies competing with other budget priorities. The mortgage program requires no state spending. The Fund provides the capital. The mortgages provide the returns.

Alaska’s current fiscal mess stems from treating Permanent Fund earnings as government revenue rather than people’s wealth. The mortgage program reverses the relationship. Instead of government spending Fund earnings on itself, the Fund serves Alaskans directly.

We can keep fighting over who loses, or we can try something where everybody wins.

Evan Swensen, an Alaska resident since 1957, is publisher of Publication Consultants and author of “What’s The Money For,” which examines constitutional solutions to Alaska’s fiscal crisis.