Scott Goldsmith

OPINION: Alaskans' personal stake in the Permanent Fund is the most powerful guarantee of its permanence. Don't change that.

OPINION: Challenge in building a sustainable budget for Alaska demands a spirit of cooperation and a fundamental agreement that doing nothing is not an option.

OPINION: Alaska will be over the fiscal cliff and way downstream if we try to sustain this unsustainable budget.

If the flow of money into Alaska from the federal government and the petroleum sector disappeared overnight, two-thirds of the jobs for Alaskans would also disappear. That's because the federal government and the petroleum sector each support roughly a third of all the jobs for Alaskans. That's around 235,000 direct and indirect jobs, both public and private, across Alaska.