Your understanding of the payments to Alaskans is flawed. The people own the land NOT the oil companies. The oil companies are paying a usage fee to the citizens not a tax. If you owned a 100 acre farm and another farmer used 50 acres of it, you would expect a portion of his profit. Same concept.
OK, thank you for enlightening me. It seems I need to do a little more research on this subject before I finalize my opinion.
Oh, and BTW, I appreciate the courteous manner of your response; as opposed to insulting me for my difference of opinion. Which happens more than it should here.
"The Alaska Permanent Fund is a constitutionally authorized appropriation of oil revenues, established by voters in 1976 to manage a surplus in state petroleum revenues from oil, largely in anticipation of same from the recently constructed Trans-Alaska Pipeline System. The fund was originally proposed by Governor Keith Miller on the eve of the 1969 Prudhoe Bay lease sale, out of fear that the legislature would spend the entire proceeds of the sale (which amounted to $900 million (US)) at once, and was later championed by Governor Jay Hammond and Kenai state representative Hugh Malone. It has served as an attractive political prospect ever since, diverting revenues which would normally be deposited into the general fund."
That said, the state taxes companies, the money taxed and collected by state force is redistributed to Alaskan residents.
Doesn't sound conservative...
... that said, send me a check too!