Alaska's Budget: Where the Money Came From and Went, 1990-2002

Abstract

Alaska’s state budget increased from $4.1 billion in 1990 to $7.4 billion in 2002. But who paid for that budget growth? W e know the state’ s oil revenues dropped by about half in the past decade—cr eating big holes in the budget—and Alaska has no personal income or other broad-based taxes. This paper is descriptive: we don’t mean to imply that particular changes were good or bad, or that some programs got too much or not enough money . Its’ part of a larger effort to help Alaskans understand the budget.