Editing Alaska Permanent Fund (section)

== Constitutional Budget Reserve ==
{{Unreferenced section|date=May 2018}}
The '''Constitutional Budget Reserve''' (CBR) is a companion fund to the Permanent Fund which was established in 1991 to ease problems from the variability of oil revenue, which vary depending upon the price of oil in the market.  Deposits into the CBR consist of settlements of back taxes and other revenues owed to the state.  Draws from the CBR into the general fund require a 3/4 vote of each house of the legislature and must be repaid.  To date, the general fund has amassed a debt of approximately $4 billion to the CBR to maintain a stable level of public spending.

The size of the debt owed to the CBR has raised doubts{{cn|date=August 2018}} over repayment.  The CBR is based on the assumption that the general fund deficit will remain constant over time (allowing paybacks to balance draws).  Believing this to be mistaken, critics{{who|date=August 2018}} allege the state uses resources from the CBR to avoid reducing the budget, acknowledging debt, or increasing taxes.  According to them, falling oil revenues and growing spending requirements will leave paybacks consistently lower than draws, causing the CBR to fail.

Former state senator [[Dave Donley]] (R-Anchorage) recognized that the high vote requirement to spend CBR money (¾ of each house) had a perverse and [[unintended consequence]].  The high vote requirement was meant to ensure that draws from the CBR would be rare, but in fact such draws are common.  Donley explained that the high vote requirement really empowers the minority party (in the 2000–2007 era, the [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democratic Party]]), who can then get what they want in a [[Christmas tree bill]] (presents for everyone, both majority and minority) in exchange for their votes (which minority votes would not be needed with the usual 51% voting rule).  Donley thus explains why both parties can and do use the higher voting rule requirement to more frequently spend from the CBR.