Plain Talk: Instead of Communist China, How About We Invest Some Legacy Fund Dollars in North Dakota Businesses?

What are we going to do with the Legacy Fund, the pot of cash North Dakota has been collecting from oil tax revenues and investing?

There are a lot of things we could do, and they generally fall into two broad categories. One is how the fund is invested, the other is what we do with the returns.

Insurance Commissioner Jon Godfread, who serves, as a part of his official duties, on the State Investment Board which oversees the investments of the Legacy Fund, has an idea for the latter of those categories.

Currently, the Legacy Fund has approximately $7 billion, and almost all of those dollars are invested outside of North Dakota.