By:
David Blatt
September 10, 2010 // Updated: May 2, 2019
Next week, the U.S. Census Bureau will release its annual report on poverty in the United States. The report will tell us how many Americans had income in 2009 below the federal poverty level, which is $18,310 for a family…
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By:
David Blatt
September 8, 2010 // Updated: May 2, 2019
An front-page USA Today article last week reported that government anti-poverty programs – including Medicaid health insurance coverage, food stamps, unemployment benefits and welfare cash assistance – are now assisting one in six Americans and are continuing to expand. Anyone…
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By:
David Blatt
September 6, 2010 // Updated: May 2, 2019
Oklahoma voters have the great good fortune this November to decide the fate of no less than 11 proposed constitutional amendments on matters ranging from education funding and health care reform to judicial nominations and (we kid you not) Sharia…
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By:
David Blatt
September 5, 2010 // Updated: May 2, 2019
In honor of Labor Day weekend, Scott Simon, host of NPR’s Weekend Edition Saturday, offered this touching essay urging us to keep in mind “the millions of Americans who don’t have jobs, but who in many ways work harder than…
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By:
David Blatt
September 3, 2010 // Updated: May 2, 2019
The Oklahoma Institute for Child Advocacy’s annual Fall Children’s Legislative Forum will be held Tuesday, October 12th and Wednesday, October 13th. The theme this year is “Protect Kids”, and the main goal of the event will be to create consensus…
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By:
David Blatt
September 1, 2010 // Updated: May 2, 2019
In 2004, Oklahoma voters approved a series of measures intended to raise new revenues for education and health care through a state lottery (SQ 705 and 706), gaming compacts (SQ 712), and increased tobacco taxes (SQ 713). OK Policy has…
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By:
David Blatt
August 30, 2010 // Updated: May 2, 2019
John Thompson is an Oklahoma City teacher with 18 years of urban high school experience and an education blogger at thisweekineducation.com. He contributes regularly to our blog on education issues.
In 2000, when serving on the Steering Committee for MAPS…
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By:
David Blatt
August 26, 2010 // Updated: May 1, 2019
The recent history of state appropriations, displayed here from our FY ’11 Budget Highlights fact sheet, shows a series of successive ups and downs:
We see that the state appropriated budget for the current year, FY ’11, is 5.8 percent…
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By:
David Blatt
August 25, 2010 // Updated: May 2, 2019
Earlier this year, we called attention to one of the stranger loopholes in the Oklahoma tax code, the case of the “double deduction” of state income taxes. Federal tax law allows taxpayers who itemize their deductions to claim a deduction…
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By:
David Blatt
August 23, 2010 // Updated: May 2, 2019
Ryan Kiesel, the author of this guest blog, has served as State Representative from District 28 since 2004 and is not seeking reelection. Ryan is the leader of the Oklahoma Lawyer Chapter of the American Constitution Society.
This November, Oklahoma…
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