YOU SHOULD GET PAID NOT TAXED!. . . The Alaska state constitution claims common heritage rights of ownership of oil and other minerals for the people of the state as a whole. Citizen dividend checks are distributed every year in Alaska out of the interest payments to an oil royalties deposit account called the Alaska Permanent Fund (APF) created in 1976 after oil was discovered on the North Slope. The APF is a public trust fund - a diversified stock, bond and real estate portfolio - into which are deposited the oil royalties received from the corporations which extract the oil from the lands of Alaska. The first citizen dividend check from the interest of the APF was issued in 1982 and was for $1000 per every person for everyone in Alaska who had resided in the state for at least one year. Annual citizen dividends have been issued every year since then, for a total of more than $23,000 per person. . . In 2003, each of the nearly 600,000 Alaska US citizens (residents of Alaska for at least one year) received a check for $1,107 from the APF. The total amount dispersed was $663.2 million. The $25 billion investment fund's core experienced stock market losses which led to the dividend's decline this past year compared to the several previous years. The amount was $433 less, a 28 percent drop from the 2002 pay out of $1,540, and a 44 percent decrease from the all-time high of $1,964 in year 2000. The amount changes based on a five-year average of APF investment income derived from the bonds, stock dividends, real estate and other investments. . . Alaska relies on oil for about 80 percent of its revenue and has no sales or income tax. Alaska state government is mandated to invest 25% of its oil revenue into the APF while the other 75% of oil royalty revenue is dispersed to other government funds to finance education, infrastructure and social services. If 100% of Alaska's oil royalties had been deposited into the APF, it is conceivable that the CD this year could have been about $4,400 or $17,600 for a family of four. But then there would have been no funds for roads, education and other public services and no funds available to run the state legislature - a libertarian dream fulfillment or a social and economic disaster, which one we will never know. If state services were to have been maintained while 100% of oil royalties were deposited in the APF, there would of course have been the need for income, sales and other taxes on wages and production. . Source(s):. . Hoover Institution. Kuwait:. . Democracy, Kuwait Style. Peter Berkowitz. . . . It’s not that the woman question was the only issue faced by voters. From the owner and editor in chief of Kuwait’s largest newspaper, to the chief executive officer of Kuwait Petroleum Company, to the former Kuwaiti ambassador to the United States, our interlocutors argued that the Kuwaiti economy is stagnating and that the remedy is privatization. This is a difficult proposition, however, in a country where 90 to 95 percent of the labor force is employed by the government, which generally pays more than the private sector. And designing institutions to create the right incentives will be difficult in a country whose oil wealth supports a massive welfare state with no taxes that generously funds its citizens’ health, education, and housing needs. . . If Alaska pays. Kuwait pays even it’s indirectly after the gulf war losses. Dubai pays. I’ve read Norway does something like this. I’ve read Nigeria is working on a fund to pay the people also. . Oil is just 1 of thousands of commodities.. . With all the commodities in your state.. . Why can’t your state pay you? . . With the resources the feds can’t they pay 50 times what Alaska pays?. . The dems and reps have all the power and all the control. . Shouldn’t they bear all the re