text: I completely agree.  I don't understand why the promoters of a plan divorcing the dividend from any relation to the performance of the Permanent Fund have failed to explain why they think it is good policy. Is it because they know that, once the dividend has no relation to the Permanent Fund, Alaskans will pay less and less attention to it, and then the real raid on the Permanent Fund can begin in earnest?  
  
  If this was all about budget math, why wouldn't "Alaska's Future (except mine)" promote a plan that continues to use today's methodology for calculating the Permanent Fund dividend and provides for it to be capped annually by an act of the Legislature?  This approach would yield the same bottom line with respect to the amount of excess Permanent Fund earnings being spent on state services and dividends, while maintaining Alaskans' interest in the Permanent Fund, and a desire to keep it permanent.