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Say "ow": Next round of Medicaid budget cuts to hit providers

According to an e-mail that went out late last Friday afternoon from Nico Gomez, the Deputy CEO for External Relations and Communications of the Oklahoma Health Care Authority (OHCA), the agency will recommend to its Board this week that it… Read more [More...]

Simply Dismal: Budget gap should spur look at improved forecasting

Everyone knew it would be bad. Could we have known it would be this bad?  Nearly one year ago, in February of 2009,  several months after the national economic recession finally hit Oklahoma, the Board of Equalization certified an official… Read more [More...]

Nothing but a strand of the net: One in 37 Oklahomans has food stamps, nothing else

The New York Times this weekend ran an important feature on one important and disturbing sign of the impact of the recession – the large and growing population of food stamp recipients that report zero household income: About six million… Read more [More...]

Health Care Reform for Dummies… and the French

Every year or two, I get an e-mail from my former housemate in France asking me to help make sense of some raging American political issue – impeachment, the electoral college, superdelegates – that is getting regular coverage abroad but… Read more [More...]

2009 Most Popular Blog Posts

OK, so we’re supposed to be on blog break, but then I realized that we could end up as the only information source in the world without its own end-of-year Top 10 or “Best of” list. Not to miss the… Read more [More...]

Happy holidays!

We’re taking a break from blogging until after New Year’s. We hope everyone has a healthy and joyful holidays; we’ll see you back in 2010.… Read more [More...]

This hardly seems like a time to brag, but…

The State Board of Equalization yesterday certified official revenue projections for this year and next. Based on actual revenue collections through November and forecasting data for the next seven months, the various agencies involved in generating the certified estimate are… Read more [More...]

Learning from the Crisis (4): Capping and suspending tax breaks

As a result of Oklahoma’s severe budget shortfalls, every state agency and program is absorbing substantial budget cuts that are having a real impact on Oklahoma families and communities. But tax expenditures – the term encompassing the array of exemptions,… 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...]

Learning from the crisis (3): Putting multi-year revenue commitments on hold

On January 1st, tax cuts with a revenue impact exceeding $100 million, which include the full repeal of the state’s estate tax and a steep increase in the standard deduction, will take effect in Oklahoma.  Do these tax cuts reflect… Read more [More...]

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