Hall, a 69-year-old trucking safety consultant, moved to Wasilla in 1972 after military service in Vietnam, and left Alaska in 2000. He was a big fan of Gov. Jay Hammond and followed the permanent fund from proposal to policy, and then to its distribution of a dividend.
When he lived in the state, Hall and his wife saved their family's dividends to buy their first house, and then spent PFD deposits on bills and groceries, avoiding splurge spending.
As he looks at the current debate over the PFD, he said, he sees both misconceptions of what it was intended to be and "greedy" politicians.
He said, "it was not a guaranteed basic income for lazy people that did not want to work. We saw it more as a return for stocks in the big oil companies. People that were working did not quit working. People did not flock to Alaska to get a free check."
He continued: "What it did was help people to find a job, go to school, pay medical bills, go to the dentist, and so forth. People that could not get a job because they did not have a car bought a car. Not one person I knew or my family considered it a guaranteed basic income that we could rely on."