OKPOLICY.ORG
In The Know is a daily synopsis of Oklahoma policy-related news and blogs. Inclusion of a story does not necessarily mean endorsement by the Oklahoma Policy Institute. You can sign up here to receive In The Know by e-mail.
Today you should know that, with the number of incarcerated women in Oklahoma back on the rise, the Oklahoma Department of Corrections is out of beds for female offenders. The OKC Police Department said auto burglaries — a common way criminals acquire weapons — are up since Oklahoma’s new open-carry law went into effect. Lawmakers criticized the Oklahoma Insurance Department for spending $180,000 on high-tech shotguns, bulletproof vests and seven police-package vehicles that agency officials say were needed to investigate insurance fraud. The Oklahoma Highway Patrol is seeking raises for troopers in an effort to make their pay more competitive.
An analysis by Good Jobs First shows that Arthur Laffer is selling snake oil to the states in policies that he has suggested in the past five years, including a plan to cut Oklahoma’s top personal income tax rate by more than half and eventually eliminate it. You can read the full report here. Oklahoma Congressman Tom Cole is being criticized by members of his own party for suggesting that Republicans should accept President Obama’s offer to extend tax cuts for the 98 percent of Americans who earn less than $250,000 a year. Gov. Mary Fallin will be among seven governors talking next week with President Obama about the effect the nation’s looming fiscal cliff would have on the states.
Mickey Hepner writes that joining the Medicaid expansion would make Oklahoma healthier and wealthier. OK Policy showed that cost estimates cited by the Governor when she rejected expansion of Medicaid are exaggerated and misleading. Find more resources on the Medicaid expansion and ways to take action here.
Eight out of ten schools in the state that received F grades on the new school report cards are located in Tulsa, but Tulsa Superintendent Ballard said the grades don’t accurately reflect the performance in his schools. The OK Policy Blog explained why marriage is not the cure-all for poverty that some have claimed.
The Number of the Day is how many states have prohibited or tightly restricted payday lending. OK Policy recently discussed some myths and the reality of payday loans. In today’s Policy Note, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities explains why extending the payroll tax cut would be good news for the economy and for the paycheck of every working American.
In The News
Oklahoma prison system out of beds for female offenders
The Oklahoma Department of Corrections is out of beds for female offenders, DOC Director Justin Jones said Friday. His comments came following a Board of Corrections discussion of the overall prison system population during a monthly meeting in Vinita. Mabel Bassett Correctional Center in McLoud, Eddie Warrior Correctional Center in Taft and Hillside Community Corrections Center in Oklahoma City are pretty much at capacity, Jones said. All three house female offenders. “The key is we are already full,” Jones said. “We had been experiencing a downward trend and all of a sudden we are heading back up. That is the key.”
Read more from the Tulsa World.
Oklahoma’s new open-carry law results in few enforcement issues
An Oklahoma City man who wore a gun on his hip while casting his ballot Election Day may be the only arrest Oklahoma City police have made related to the state’s new open-carry law. The law resulted in few enforcement issues in the month since it took effect Nov. 1, Capt. Dexter Nelson said. However, auto burglaries — a common way criminals acquire the weapons — are up, Nelson said. Dispatchers have received calls regarding the law change, mostly from business owners who wanted information about signs stating guns aren’t allowed inside, Nelson said.
Oklahoma Insurance Department spends $180k on guns, police vehicles
The Oklahoma Insurance Department spent more than $180,000 on high-tech shotguns, bulletproof vests and seven police-package vehicles that agency officials say were needed as part of its expanded focus on criminal insurance fraud. But the purchases have raised eyebrows among some lawmakers who question why the agency’s nine-member anti-fraud unit which primarily investigates white-collar crimes needs equipment typically used by police officers and SWAT teams.
Read more from the Associated Press.
OHP seeks raises for troopers to make pay competitive in state
The Oklahoma Highway Patrol is seeking raises for troopers in an effort to make their pay more competitive. Capt. Pete Norwood, legislative liaison for the state Department of Public Safety and Oklahoma Highway Patrol, said a significant number of law enforcement agencies in the state pay more than the OHP. Pay is a factor in the recruitment and retention of troopers, he said. The starting pay for a cadet entering the OHP academy is $33,192, Norwood said. That figure increases to $38,000 once a trooper graduates and hits the highways. Other law enforcement agencies pay as much as $42,000 to $43,000 for cadets entering their academies, Norwood said.
Read more from the Tulsa World.
Author of Oklahoma income-tax-cutting plan criticized
Harsh words criticizing the author of a plan this year to cut Oklahoma’s top personal income tax rate by more than half and eventually eliminate it isn’t causing a state group to shy away from the proposal. Arthur Laffer was selling snake oil to the states in his policies that he suggested the past five years to the American Legislative Exchange Council, a nonprofit, conservative group that develops model legislation to state legislators, according to a study released last week. Some of those ideas were incorporated in the income-tax reduction plan Laffer prepared last year for the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs, a conservative think tank.
See also: Selling Snake Oil to the States from Good Jobs First
The GOP and its urge to purge
It seems the Republicans have run out of squishy moderates to purge. Now they’re starting to run conservatives out of town for being insufficiently doctrinaire. Cole, a deeply conservative congressman from deeply Republican Oklahoma, is not to be confused with a RINO: Republican in name only. But when the lawmaker, who has been part of House GOP leadership, floated a perfectly sensible notion this week — that Republicans should accept President Obama’s offer to extend tax cuts for the 98 percent of Americans who earn less than $250,000 a year — he was treated as if he had been caught reading Marx in the Republican cloakroom.
Read more from The Washington Post.
Gov. Fallin will meet with President to talk about fiscal cliff
Gov. Mary Fallin will be among seven governors talking next week with the president about the effect the nation’s looming fiscal cliff would have on the states. Fallin, vice chairman of the National Governors Association, is among members of the group’s executive committee who are to meet Tuesday with President Barack Obama in Washington, D.C. “We’re concerned about the federal monies the states receive, what kinds of cuts are we going to be getting to our state budgets,” she said. “We just don’t know what Washington’s going to do.”
Healthier and wealthier? Not in Oklahoma
If someone offered to make you healthier and wealthier, would you take it? Apparently, some Oklahoma officials would not. In the past few weeks Oklahoma officials have rejected an offer to pump billions of dollars into the state economy and improve health care access for thousands of Oklahomans. Citing the estimated cost of the expansion, the governor claimed that the program would “require cuts to important government priorities such as education and public safety.” In short, the governor says we cannot afford to do this. A careful evaluation of the evidence though, shows that we cannot afford to not do this.
Read more from The Edmond Sun.
See also: Wrong Number: Medicaid cost estimates are exaggerated and misleading from the OK Policy Blog
With the most failing schools, Tulsa leaders suspect grading methods
Of the 10 schools that received F’s in the entire state one was in Oklahoma City, one in Atoka and the other eight were in Tulsa. Tulsa Public Schools and Oklahoma City Public Schools are among the worst performing school districts in the state, both facing high poverty rates, community issues with gangs and violence, and high teacher and student mobility. Both districts have always had the majority of schools on the needs improvement list, and some schools have been earmarked for special attention and grants from the federal government. So the announcement that some are failing is not new news. But Ballard is among a number of superintendents who think the grades don’t accurately reflect the performance in his schools.
Marriage won’t end poverty
Poverty in Oklahoma is at a six-year high. Recent Census numbers showed that more than one in six Oklahomans – and almost one in four children – live in poverty. Even as we are lauded for our economic successes, the chronically high poverty rate shows that large numbers of Oklahomans are not getting ahead. Many factors contribute to keeping people in poverty, including low wages, lack of education, mass incarceration, racial discrimination, food insecurity, and limited access to health care. Yet to hear some tell it, these long-lasting problems have a simple solution: marriage.
Read more from the OK Policy Blog.
Quote of the Day
Some people seem to think this is leverage. I think that’s wrong. You don’t consider people’s lives as leverage.
–Oklahoma Congressman Tom Cole, who said Republicans should stop holding 98 percent of Americans hostage by refusing to spare them a tax hike unless the wealthiest 2 percent are included.
Number of the Day
23
Number of states that have prohibited (15) or tightly restricted (8) payday lending, 2012
Source: OK Policy Blog
See previous Numbers of the Day here.
Policy Note
Good News: The payroll tax cut is not part of the tax debate
One of the most troubling aspects of the current tax debate has been that policymakers have almost completely ignored the about-to-expire payroll tax cut. Not any more: President Obama has called for a one-year extension of the payroll tax cut or enactment of a similar-sized tax cut for working families, according to press reports. This is very good news for the economy and for the paycheck of every working American. The payroll tax cut was designed to put more money in the pockets of average Americans, particularly those who tend to live paycheck to paycheck and, hence, would spend it soon, boosting the recovery. If we let it expire, every paycheck in America will go down the first week of January.
Read more from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
You can sign up here to receive In The Know by e-mail.
