Recent Articles

Hurting all over: A survey of some recent state and local budget cuts

As revenues have come in significantly below estimates this year, funding to state agencies was cut 5 percent a month from August to November and 10 percent each month since (see our updated fact sheet). OK Policy’s intern Matt Gardner… Read more [More...]

Help us do our work – Contribute to our blog

If you’re reading this blog, chances are you’ve got opinions and points of view on some of the major policy issues confronting Oklahoma. What impact is the economic downturn and fiscal crisis having on the organizations you’re involved in and… Read more [More...]

Oklahoma Policy Institute Report Shines Light on Need for Greater Scrutiny of State Tax Breaks

Contact: David Blatt, Director (918) 794-3944; (918) 859-8747 – cell (Tulsa, February 17, 2010):  Oklahoma’s budget crisis creates new needs and new opportunities to review the state’s extensive system of tax breaks, according to a research brief released today by… Read more [More...]

Shining the Light on Tax Breaks

An OK Policy brief titled “Let There Be Light: Making Oklahoma’s Tax Expenditures More Transparent and Accountable” makes the case for increasing disclosure and scrutiny of tax expenditures, the array of exemptions, credits, deductions, and the like in the tax… Read more [More...]

Déjà Vu All Over Again: funding essential services

Well, it happened again. This month Leadership OK (LOK) was in McAlester instead of in Muskogee, but there was something familiar about what we heard and how the class reacted. Last month, after a presentation by Neal McCaleb, President of… Read more [More...]

2009 Oklahoma Self-Sufficiency Standard

The Self-Sufficiency Standard for Oklahoma 2009 calculates the amount of income Oklahoma families need to meet their basic needs. The report was prepared by Dr. Diana Pearce of the Cenetr for Women’s Welfare at the University of Washington for the… Read more [More...]

Exploring ways to build assets among low-income (Oklahoman)

Oklahoman Editorial The word “assets” and the term “lower-income citizens” rarely appear in the same sentence. The working poor often have no assets, so the lack of a linkage is axiomatic. Yet linking “assets” to “lower-income citizens” is not only… Read more [More...]

More Than Just Getting By: The importance of assets for promoting opportunity for Oklahomans

OK Policy’s issue brief, More Than Just Getting By, serves as an overview of asset building in Oklahoma. A major segment of the population has few, if any, assets, despite the fact that they are a key element in developing… Read more [More...]

Oklahoma’s Poor and Middle Income Families Pay a Higher Percentage in State, Local Taxes

(Oklahoma City, Nov. 18, 2009): State and local taxes take a bigger toll on the incomes of Oklahoma’s low- and moderate-income households than on higher-income households, according to a new study by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a… Read more [More...]

New Who Pays? Report from ITEP

A new report  from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) reveals that low and moderate-income Oklahomans pay a greater percentage of their incomes in state and local taxes than those with higher incomes.  The full report is available … Read more [More...]