OKPOLICY.ORG
Note: This post has been updated to reflect the most recent information (11/7/17: 9:00 pm)
You are needed right now to contact your Representative and urge him or her to support the comprehensive budget plan contained in HB 1054.
- Click here to find your Representative.
Monday, the State Senate passed with a bipartisan vote of 37-5 a revised version of HB 1035 which includes a $1.50 cigarette tax increase, a 6 cent fuel tax increase, and a 4 percent gross production tax on new wells. This comprehensive revenue plan, also dubbed Plan A+ or the “Grand Bargain”, must pass with a three-quarters majority to take effect in time to save lives threatened by the state’s budget emergency.
Tuesday, a new version of the comprehensive plan containing identical language to HB 1035 was introduced as HB 1054 and passed out of the House JCAB committee on a 19-6 vote. The bill number has changed but the plan is the same.
HB 1054 is expected to be heard by the full House today (Wednesday).
The deal contained in HB 1035/HB 1054 is the only solution left to avert devastating budget cuts, provide desperately needed raises for teachers and state employees, and restore the Earned Income Tax Credit for low-income workers. House members from both parties must support HB 1035/HB 1054so that it reaches the supermajority needed to pass a revenue bill.
This is it. This is the last chance for a comprehensive, fair, and long-term solution to the budget crisis. The hard reality is that there is no choice between HB 1054 and some better deal. The only choice is between HB 1054 and a far worse deal or no deal at all. The far worse deal, which has been promoted by House Republican leadership in recent days, involves a combination of one-time cash and cuts that would deepen next year’s budget hole, put our credit rating at risk, and do more damage to important state services needed by Oklahoman families. If there’s no deal at all by December 1st, Oklahomans’ health care and social services will be devastated.
The Senate vote means that there is now a realistic path to a good outcome — but it will take House members knowing that they have their constituents’ support for a tough vote. Please contact your House member today in support of HB 1054. Be sure to share how the failure to resolve the budget crisis will affect your family, your business, or your community. See our Advocacy Alert for talking points and additional resources and our Special Session Frequently Asked Questions for more information.
Here is our full statement on why OK Policy supports the comprehensive budget plan that is on the table and that requires passage of HB 1035/HB 1054:
The comprehensive budget plan based on HB 1054 is the best possible outcome and the only good outcome under our current circumstances. It recognizes that the state budget can only begin to be fixed with new recurring revenues and provides an important measure of fairness by curbing the tax break for oil and gas companies and restoring the earned income tax credit. Most urgently, it averts catastrophic cuts to our health care system and social safety net while providing crucial pay raises for teachers and state employees. There is still much more work to do in the next regular session to ensure a fairer tax system and a budget that meets the needs of Oklahomans, but now is the time to approve this compromise and bring the budget emergency to an end. We urge all House members to support HB 1054.
It has come to the point that something important needs to happen with-in the the Great State of Oklahoma.
For the past seventeen years that we have lived here, we have not seen the progress and caring that is needed to improve the state, find businesses that can pay a good wage and let families live in there own house.
We seem to have overlooked that we may have some great Universities, but if you don’t have young people properly prepared to attend these Universities, we have failed.
Good teaches, good wages are the key to the future.
I left teaching years ago because where I wored ,I made more when I was in the Marines and never did get a raise after graduating from a fine University.
We need to wake up and look into the future, and see how important the decisions that are made now will effect and affect our children futures.
We need companies to hire and further train our graduates for the new coming, the beginnings.
It is not just about oil, or this or that it is building a strong foundation and the next 30 to fifty years that will determine why people keep moving other places and home schooling and not believing what is being told to them.
The future has be thought out, and putting dumb taxes in place that will neither make sense to all of us, do something to make improvements and develop a strategy that will not unravel, every time something happens in far away places.
I have stayed here wanting to see improvements, I have lived all over the world and this place we call Oklahoma has so much going for it, we need to quit messing it up and put our backs into making this place a great place to learn and earn.