Senator Lisa Murkowski called it "agonizing." The reconciliation package, 887 pages that nobody really had time to read. She faced a decision. Vote yes, or vote no? She made her complaints known about the rushed process, the lack of committee review, the way Congress does business when it wants something done yesterday, but when the vote came, she said yes anyway.

The Alaska math was pretty straightforward.

Fifty billion dollars for rural hospitals. Alaska's hospitals run on a mix of Medicaid, Medicare, and Indian Health Service funding, always have, and probably always will.

The bill also gave Alaska and Hawaii a break on SNAP requirements for two years. Alaska has the nation's highest food stamp error rate, but Murkowski negotiated a delay on penalties for states with high error rates after lobbying for the provision.

Then came the energy stuff that made Alaska's delegation happy.

Seventy percent of oil and gas royalties will stay in Alaska. New drilling opportunities in ANWR, NPR-A, and Cook Inlet. The kind of revenue sharing that Alaska has been drooling at since statehood. Currently, the state gets 50% of federal oil and gas royalties, so bumping that up to 70% means real money in the state budget. For a state that basically exists because of oil money, this is a big deal. Also we did an article about Alaskan oil here.

Seven billion for icebreakers. Three hundred million for port upgrades. The Coast Guard gets new toys and Alaska gets the jobs that come with maintaining them. With Russia building military bases all over the Arctic, and new arctic pathways being formed, somebody needs to keep an eye on things. Now guess where that somebody is going to be based?

Even subsistence whaling captains will be able to deduct up to $50,000 in expenses. Western Alaska fishermen get their own tax exemption too as part of the deal. That's the kind of oddly specific provision that ends up in bills when senators need every vote they can get.

Murkowski also preserved some clean energy tax credits that were set to be eliminated immediately. She negotiated for solar and wind projects to keep their credits if they start construction by 2027, potentially saving Alaska renewable energy projects through her negotiations.

Alaska got mentioned 19 times in those 887 pages. Not bad for a state with fewer people than San Francisco. Murkowski said it was "an accumulation of different initiatives that we've been working on for a long time." which just means she's been making lists and finally got to check off most of the boxes.

But the criticism came fast.

"Polar payoff," according to the Daily Beast. Deficit hawks worried about the price tag. National pundits called it everything from Arctic bribery to frontier welfare in their coverage. The usual suspects said the usual things about Alaska being too expensive.

Murkowski's response was predictable: "My obligation is to Alaska." Dan Sullivan called it a "jobs bill for Alaska." Both probably true, but also the kind of thing you say when you're trying to justify a vote that looks questionable to people outside the state.

The political math was more complicated than the economic math.

Murkowski faces re-election in 2028. Alaska's ranked-choice voting system supposedly rewards moderation, but it also rewards results. Her 2022 race against Kelly Tshibaka was basically a test case for this theory. Tshibaka had Trump's endorsement, the Alaska Republican Party's backing, and spent the whole campaign calling Murkowski a RINO who didn't represent Alaskan values. Murkowski won anyway. Not because Alaska voters suddenly became moderate, but because Tshibaka was an unknown quantity with no track record. Tshibaka could give great speeches about conservative principles, but she couldn't point to any federal dollars she'd delivered. In a state where the government is the biggest employer and federal money keeps half the economy running, results matter more than ideology. Also you can find more about Alaska's political climate in an article we wrote here.

The 2028 politics are harder to predict. Murkowski's opponent will probably attack her for making backroom deals and supporting massive deficit spending. They'll call her a Washington insider who's been there too long. Murkowski will point to the billions she brought home for Alaska. Whether voters care more about conservative principles or concrete benefits depends on how much they like their rural hospitals staying open and their oil checks getting bigger.

The "agonizing" part probably had more to do with the optics than the actual decision. Murkowski knows how this looks. Alaska senator votes for massive spending bill that happens to shower her state with money. She's been in the Senate for 23 years and understands the criticism that comes with deals like this. But she also knows that Alaska voters care more about results than process. The agony wasn't about whether to take the deal, but about how to defend it without looking like she sold her principles for a few billion dollars.

And let's be honest about what this really was. Alaska got bought. Not in some corrupt way, but in the perfectly legal way that Congress has always worked. You want my vote? Here's my price. Murkowski had a list and she got most of it.

Whether any of this actually works remains to be seen.

Federal money has a way of disappearing into administrative costs as studies show. Rural hospitals will still struggle with credentialed staffing despite funding increases. Oil and gas development still faces environmental challenges (although there was an expediting clause in the BBB according to CBO analysis). Icebreakers take years to build as the Coast Guard has learned. The gap between appropriation and implementation is usually pretty wide.

But Murkowski didn't really have a choice. Vote no and Alaska gets nothing. Vote yes and Alaska gets something, even if it's not everything. That's not exactly a tough call for a senator from a state that depends on federal dollars.

Murkowski's vote came down to basic math. Alaska gets billions in federal money. She probably gets to stay in the Senate. Her opponents get talking points for 2028, but probably not the kind that hurt her in a state where bringing home federal dollars is part of the job description.

The Big Beautiful Bill passed. Alaska won, sort of. And Murkowski proved once again that representing Alaska means taking what you can get when you can get it.

Sometimes that's the best you can do.