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Monday, February 02, 2009

I'm going to resist the obvious comment about this
Posted by Jill | 7:37 PM
And I'm going to try really hard not to laugh:
Alaska budget reserve suffers billion-dollar loss

Because Department of Revenue officials plowed a big chunk of the Constitutional Budget Reserve into stocks shortly before the meltdown started, the state suffered the same kind of stinging losses many Americans have experienced in their personal retirement portfolios.

Revenue officials, as well as state legislators who encouraged the stock investments in hopes of generating bigger profits, acknowledge their timing was dreadful.

But they're hoping the market rebounds in coming years and the bet pays off over the long haul.

Others say they're concerned about further losses for the budget reserve, which legislators might have to tap as soon as this year to help balance the state budget.

"Are we still at risk for going down the tubes further?" asked Rep. Harry Crawford, an Anchorage Democrat and member of the House Finance Committee.

[snip]

During last year's legislative session, lawmakers had a huge stack of surplus dollars on hand because of a run of record-high oil prices, so they put more than $4 billion into the Constitutional Budget Reserve as savings.

Instead of parking the money in the reserve's conservative investment account, it was shifted to a subaccount that's invested more aggressively in stocks.

That subaccount had a market value of about $4.5 billion in the summer. But with the stock market crash, its value has plunged to $3.5 billion -- meaning a $1 billion loss, said Jerry Burnett, the state's deputy revenue commissioner.


Well, now we know why Sarah Palin is already laying the groundwork for a presidential run -- because that's the only way she's going to be able to get her hands on some more of those nice designer duds given her state's fiscal condition.

But the reason this isn't a laughing matter, as tempting as it is to post a picture of Nelson from The Simpsons taunting "HA-ha!" is because Alaska's native population in towns like Emmonak are hurting badly, even without their state's government squandering the state's budget reserve.

I can't wait to hear Evita Mooselini go touring the country promising to do for the rest of the country what she's done for Alaska. You betcha. And I can't wait to hear how she explains to Joe the Plumber that she supported the stimulus bill to make up for her colossal mismanagement of "her" state.

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