By:
David Blatt
January 22, 2010 // Updated: May 2, 2019
No piece of legislation in Oklahoma in the past decade was more controversial or contentious than HB 1804. Passed in 2007, HB 1804 – officially designated the Oklahoma Taxpayer and Citizen Act – enacted a series of restrictions intended to…
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By:
David Blatt
January 20, 2010 // Updated: May 2, 2019
Today’s Tulsa World has a strong editorial opposing legislative proposals to enact further restrictions on property taxes. For those who haven’t been following, this week has seen a public flare-up of a long-simmering internal battle within the House Republican caucus…
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By:
David Blatt
January 19, 2010 // Updated: May 1, 2019
Last week I attended the Stand Up for Seniors advocacy forum which focused on the impact the state’s worsening economic and fiscal situation is having on programs serving seniors. State Treasurer Scott Meacham was among the elected officials who addressed…
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By:
David Blatt
January 14, 2010 // Updated: May 1, 2019
In writing about the state’s current budget woes, I’ve tended to say that Oklahoma is in the midst of its worst fiscal crisis since the oil bust of the 1980’s. Whether we were around during those days or not, I…
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By:
David Blatt
January 13, 2010 // Updated: May 2, 2019
Kurt Hochenauer, whose OkieFunk: Notes from the Outback blog provides consistently sharp and perceptive commentary on Oklahoma political issues, recently had a nice piece in the Oklahoma Gazette putting the recent rise in poverty in the state in its historical…
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Just a quick post to let you know that the Oklahoman today ran an op-ed setting out the policy proposals we have developed for managing budget downturns. The op-ed was based on the full issue brief and 1-page summary we…
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By:
David Blatt
January 11, 2010 // Updated: May 2, 2019
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…
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By:
David Blatt
January 8, 2010 // Updated: May 1, 2019
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…
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By:
David Blatt
January 7, 2010 // Updated: May 2, 2019
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…
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By:
David Blatt
January 5, 2010 // Updated: May 2, 2019
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…
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