Recent Articles

With the right choices, we can restore education funding

These are the prepared remarks delivered by David Blatt at the Oklahoma Education Rally on March 31st It’s amazing to see such a huge crowd standing up for public education and Oklahoma’s children. Thank you all for being here. My… Read more [More...]

Filling the Hole: Options for a balanced approach to the state budget shortfall

The Board of Equalization has certified that legislators will have $188 million less for next year’s budget compared to this year.  In her FY 2015 Executive Budget, Governor Fallin proposed an overall cut of 1.9 percent across all of state… Read more [More...]

Report Lays Out Options for a Balanced Approach to Filling the Budget Hole

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Tuesday, March 25, 2014 Contact: David Blatt (918) 859-8747(918) 859-8747   (TULSA, OK):  Despite a drop in revenue certified as available for next year’s budget, a new brief from Oklahoma Policy Institute shows that budget cuts are not… Read more [More...]

Filling the Budget Hole: Options for a Balanced Approach

Despite a drop in revenue certified as available for next year’s budget, a new report from Oklahoma Policy Institute shows that budget cuts are not inevitable. [More...]

Graph of the Day: State tax rates and drilling activity show no correlation

In recent years there has been a tremendous growth of horizontal drilling for oil and gas across the United States.  In Oklahoma, this has led to growing concern that the state’s tax breaks for horizontal drilling are growing out of… Read more [More...]

Revising the third-grade reading retention law

In 2011, the Oklahoma legislature approved major amendments to the Reading Sufficiency Act, a law originally enacted in 1997 to improve Oklahoma children’s reading skills. As of this year, the law requires third-grade students who score “unsatisfactory” on a state… Read more [More...]

The colors of money

Recently, Treasurer Ken Miller shared data from the Council of Governments showing that Oklahoma ranked 7th  in the percentage of state expenditures from federal funds, with more than two-fifths (43 percent) of all dollars spent by the state spending coming… Read more [More...]

Latest tax cut proposals would leave budget decisions on auto-pilot

The Oklahoma Senate and House of Representatives are both considering bills to cut Oklahoma’s top income tax rate in future years based on revenue targets, or triggers. Pushing tax cuts into the future and making them conditional on triggers is… Read more [More...]

Moving new employees to 401(k)s would endanger existing pensions, increase cost to taxpayers

During this year’s State of the State address, Gov. Mary Fallin expressed strong support for doing away with traditional  defined benefit pension plans for new hires within the Oklahoma Public Employees Retirement System (OPERS) in favor of 401k-style defined contribution… Read more [More...]

One More Time: Past income tax cuts did not cause Oklahoma revenues to rise

Once again this session, proponents of cuts to Oklahoma’s top income tax rate are arguing that cutting taxes will lead to higher tax revenues, basing their position on the notion that Oklahoma’s tax collections rose after the state cut taxes… Read more [More...]