State Revenue Dedicated for Special Purposes: A Proposed Constitutional Amendment

The Alaska State budget has decreased in recent years, and because of the lower price of oil, it is not expected to recover in the near term. This smaller budgetary pie may intensify the impulse to protect the funding of individual projects. However, the Alaska Constitution forbids the dedication of...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Andrews, Mark
Format: Text
Language:unknown
Published: Duke University School of Law 2021
Subjects:
Law
Online Access:https://scholarship.law.duke.edu/alr/vol38/iss2/3
https://scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1608&context=alr
Description
Summary:The Alaska State budget has decreased in recent years, and because of the lower price of oil, it is not expected to recover in the near term. This smaller budgetary pie may intensify the impulse to protect the funding of individual projects. However, the Alaska Constitution forbids the dedication of taxes for specific purposes. This Essay proposes a state constitutional amendment that would allow such dedications, subject to limits designed to avoid potential problems. The Essay describes the effect the proposal would have had on past decisions of the Alaska Supreme Court and compares the dedication of tax revenue to the “New Property” identified by Charles Reich.