Recent Articles

Overtime update is long overdue

An earlier version of this post appeared in the Journal Record For a long time now, hardworking, middle-class Americans have seen their wages stagnate, while the benefits of economic growth go mostly to the wealthiest. One reason for this trend… Read more [More...]

Understanding Oklahoma’s new tax rates on oil and gas production

With the start of the new fiscal year tomorrow (July 1), many new laws are set to take effect. Perhaps the most consequential new law is one passed last session, HB 2562, which extended and made permanent tax breaks for… Read more [More...]

Our new Director of Operations and Development

Oklahoma Policy Institute is very pleased to announce that Shiloh Kantz has been promoted to the position of Director of Operations and Development effective June 1, 2015. In the newly-created position, Kantz’s responsibilities include financial management, fundraising and development, event… Read more [More...]

Taking a little off the top

This past session, as Oklahoma grappled with a $611 million budget shortfall, a lot was heard about off-the-top apportionments, or tax revenues that are allocated directly to various funds without legislative appropriation. In this year’s State of the State address,… Read more [More...]

Budget challenge asks, “What part of ‘nothing but appropriations’ do you not understand?”

Early in May, former State Representative Mike Reynolds, represented by Oklahoma City attorneys Jerry Fent and Ted Pool, filed a lawsuit against Governor Mary Fallin and other officeholders on behalf of the taxpayers of Oklahoma. The suit challenges how the… Read more [More...]

Flat funding still means cuts for Oklahoma’s core services

In crafting a budget in the face of a large drop in available revenue, lawmakers this year made a sincere effort to minimize cuts to key agencies in the areas of education, health, and safety. Whereas most agencies took cuts… Read more [More...]

An easier target

An earlier version of this post appeared as a column in the Journal Record. One day when I was in junior high, some friends and I came across a schoolyard fight between two of our classmates. A number of children… Read more [More...]

Former Bellmon top advisor, non-profit director join OK Policy board

Oklahoma Policy Institute is pleased to announce that Andrew Tevington, who served for many years as a top advisor to Governor Henry Bellmon, and Felicia Collins Correia, whose experience includes over 25 years as CEO of major non-profit organizations in… Read more [More...]

The state budget deficit is not just oil prices

Oklahoma lawmakers are now struggling to write a budget with $611 million less revenue available than what was appropriated last year. It’s easy to blame falling energy prices and accompanying job losses for the shortfall – until we recall that… Read more [More...]

No, halting the tax cut doesn’t need a supermajority

Unless the Legislature acts to halt it, the state’s top income tax rate will fall from 5.25 to 5 percent next January based on legislation passed last session, SB 1246,  that tied the top rate cut to a revenue trigger.… Read more [More...]