The Weekly Top 3 (9.28.2026)
from The Weekly Top 3 Hosted by Alaskans for Sustainable Budgets
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 September 21, 2026. This week, our top 3 issues are these: 1) using the Legislative Finance Division’s “swoop” chart as a base, we examine the scale of the reduction in UGF revenues being created by tax expenditures (2:10), 2) we do some dollar tracing to determine in whose pockets the dollars being diverted from middle income Alaska households through PFD cuts are ending up (21:08), and 3) we discuss the push for increased state spending on childcare, whose pockets the dollars are likely to come from and a new study that helps explain the impact of taking those dollars from middle-income households (39:53). 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. We join Michael weekly in the first hour of Tuesday’s show, from 6:25–7am, for a discussion between the two of us about our three issues.
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What this episode covers
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 September 21, 2026. This week, our top 3 issues are these: 1) using the Legislative Finance Division’s “swoop” chart as a base, we examine the scale of the reduction in UGF revenues being created by tax expenditures (2:10), 2) we do some dollar tracing to determine in whose pockets the dollars being diverted from middle income Alaska households through PFD cuts are...
Chapters
- 0:00 Welcome And This Week’s Top Three
- 2:08 What Tax Expenditures Really Are
- 6:35 Adding Hidden Spending To The Swoop
- 12:40 The S-Corp Loophole Argument
- 21:15 Why Trace Dollars From PFD Cuts
- 26:10 Medicaid Money And Who Fights Cuts
- 31:50 Quintiles Chart And Where Spending Lands
- 40:00 Childcare Spending Push And Who Pays
- 44:30 United Way Cost Of Living Reality
- 48:50 The Doom Loop Of PFD-Funded Programs
- 52:10 Closing Thoughts And Where To Follow
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