If You're in Anchorage Tomorrow and Want to Learn about Alaska's Fiscal System...

Anchorage—

…you should come to the forum on “Hard Times and the Permanent Fund” from 10:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. It’s on Saturday at the Anchorage Senior Center at 1300 E. 19th Avenue. It’s open to the public and it’s free—there’s even going to be coffee, muffins, and fruit.

The forum is sponsored by Alaska Common Ground, of which I'm a board member. The forum is co-sponsored by the League of Women Voters, AARP, the First Alaskans Institute, the Resource Development Council of Alaska, and Commonwealth North. There will be a panel discussion and the opportunity for questions from the public. I'm helping to do the introductory presentation, and I’ll be setting out the basic relationships between the Permanent Fund, the Permanent Fund Dividend, and the General Fund (also known as “the budget”).

The topic of tomorrow’s forum is of course outside this blog’s subject area, but there is a common source for me—an interest in how government works in Alaska.

I’m also writing about this event to explain why posting on this blog has been light this week: I’ve been spending a lot of time the past two weeks organizing, promoting, and preparing for this forum. Starting on Sunday I’ve going to full-time book writing, with some coverage of breaking news on this blog and some production here of material that will also appear in the book. So check back here this weekend for more.