The Weekly Top 3 (5.26.2025)

With nearly a third of FY26 spending covered by PFD cuts, we examine #WhoPays; Anna MacKinnon picks up from where she left off in the Senate & how the #akleg could smooth big swings in oil revenues

Welcome to The Weekly Top 3 — our look at the top 3 things on our mind here at Alaskans for Sustainable Budgets — for the week of May 26, 2025.

The Weekly Top 3 is a regular weekly segment on The Michael Dukes Show. The Show broadcasts on Facebook and YouTubeLive as well as via streaming audio from the Show’s website weekdays from 6–8am. I join Michael weekly in the first hour of Tuesday’s show, from 6:10–7am, for a discussion between the two of us about our three issues.

This week, our top 3 issues are these: 1) we walk through the sources and uses of funds in the FY26 budget, and examine who is bearing the burden created by using PFD cuts to provide nearly a third of the revenues (2:14); 2) we explain how a recent op-ed from Anna MacKinnon on the Permanent Fund picks up from where she left off when she left the Senate: finding ways to fund spending while protecting the Top20% & #OilCos from paying for it (18:50); and 3) we discuss how we could avoid the Alaska budget being so impacted by swings in oil prices (36:39).

The segment is at the YouTube clip above. For those who prefer the audio version, it is available on our Spotify and Soundcloud pages. And for those interested, a rough draft of the transcript of each show from July 23, 2024, forward is available through our Buzzsprout page.

Go to the Show’s Soundcloud page here for this and other complete podcasts of The Michael Dukes Show.