Tag: Scott Meacham

The terrible thing about triggers

Lawmakers began the year promising large, immediate cuts to the income tax, but their hopes soon collided with budget reality. With state funding already falling behind Oklahoma’s needs in many areas, legislators have found no easy way to pay for… Read more [More...]

Watch This: Is eliminating the income tax the silver bullet or fool's gold?

On April 5, OK Policy sponsored a forum of leading Oklahoma economists, economic developers, and budget experts to discuss plans to reduce or eliminate the state income tax.  The eight speakers exposed fundamental flaws in the research being used to… Read more [More...]

[The Weekly Wonk] October 14, 2011

What’s up this week at Oklahoma Policy Institute? The Weekly Wonk is dedicated to this week’s events, publications, and blog posts. This week at OK Policy, we interviewed Steven Dow about recent controversy at the Oklahoma Commission for Human Services. … Read more [More...]

Guest Blog (Scott Meacham): Rural and Small Business Credits are bad tax policy run amok

Scott Meacham is the former State Treasurer and former director of the Oklahoma Office of State Finance. He currently chairs the Oklahoma Chamber of Commerce’s Economic Development and Taxation Committee. The Oklahoma legislature has struggled for decades with the best… Read more [More...]

Guest Blog (Tom Adelson, Scott Meacham & Preston Doerflinger): Oklahoma tax credit is subsidizing out-of-state businesses

Senator Tom Adelson is a state senator from Tulsa. Scott Meacham is the former State Treasurer and former director of the Oklahoma Office of State Finance. Preston Doerflinger is the current director of the Oklahoma Office of State Finance. If… Read more [More...]

Legislative action on pensions shores up system, defuses rhetoric

The 2011 legislative session was marked by passage of legislation to limit lawsuit damages, restrict the collective bargaining rights of public employees and the legal rights of teachers, revamp the workers compensation system, and consolidate state agencies. Yet when asked… Read more [More...]

FY '12 revenue certification: It still adds up to more hard times

The State Board of Equalization met yesterday to certify preliminary revenue estimates for the upcoming budget year, FY ’12. These estimates will form the basis for the Governor’s Executive Budget that will be delivered in early February; the Board will… Read more [More...]

State Revenues: One-third full or two-thirds empty?

Yesterday’s announcement of state General Revenue (GR) collections for the month of November showed that the state continues to recover only slowly and partially from the depths of the downturn. Outgoing State Treasurer Scott Meacham chose to highlight that November… Read more [More...]

Play it again: Why government can't be run more like a business

Note: As the economy continues to struggle and revenue collections remain well below pre-downturn levels, we thought this a good time to repost a blog we first ran in January of this year challenging an argument we continue to hear… Read more [More...]

Quick Take: Revenue collections recovering very slowly

The latest revenue collections announced today (PDF) by Treasurer Scott Meacham continue to confirm that while revenues are recovering from their precipitous drop during the worst of the downturn, the recovery is slow and far from complete. September’s General Revenue… Read more [More...]