This is a summary from many sources:
This year, every man, woman, and child in Alaska received a government check for $3,269. For Sarah Palin's family that amounted to $22,883 in 2008. It is called the Permanent Fund Dividend. It comes from oil company profits, which are taxed by the state then distributed to the citizens in the form of "dividends." Oil company profits of course comes from all the American end users of every state in the union and beyond.
The amount was about $1200 higher this year than in past years because Governer Palin added a windfall profits tax on the oil companies, increasing the state's tax revenue and adding to the dividend each Alaskan receives.
To summarize: the government of Alaska takes a portion of the oil industry's profits which comes from all citizens of America and spread the wealth to only Alaskans.
Before someone answers that Alaskans own the land so they should get the profit distributions, the predominate oil profits comes from US federally owned properties, paid for by all American tax payers of the previous generations.
Ummm...isn't that socialism? and not a very fair socialism at that.