OKPOLICY.ORG
Steve Lewis served as Speaker of the Oklahoma House of Representatives from 1989-1991. He currently practices law in Tulsa and represents clients at the Capitol. You can sign up on his website to receive the Capitol Updates newsletter by email.
The budget process is winding its way toward an announcement that a “budget deal has been reached.” My guess is legislative leaders and the governor have decided to patch together a budget, by putting lipstick on a pig as the saying goes, and get out of town as soon as possible. At this point in the session there’s not much else to do. Budgeting, in concept, is pretty simple. If you have more expenses than revenue you can either increase your revenue, cut your expenses or move money from one pocket to the other so you can meet the expenses you absolutely have to and let the others wait for better times.
Most people have lived this scenario from time to time in their lives so it’s not hard to figure out what’s going on with the state. The method the legislature has adopted to deal with the budget problem in the past few years, and will again this year, is a combination of cutting expenses and moving money from one pocket to another. This is because it’s the most painless and therefore politically acceptable way of getting through the crisis. No one really sees the true cost of the cuts unless they are directly affected. And moving money budgeted to solve a long-term problem to a budget needed to fix a short-term crisis is a rational thing to do.
The problem this legislature has, probably both this year and next, is that this budget cutting and fund shifting has gone on for quite a while. At a point, more people begin to realize they are affected by the cuts, and the long-term problems that were intended to be fixed can no longer wait. We’re beginning to see this in the areas of education, health, mental health, social services and public safety.
Everyone who is paying attention knows that more revenue in the form of taxes is off the table for the legislature. And the governor and a majority of legislators consider delaying the tax cut passed last year in anticipation of better times as the political equivalent of a tax increase. So at least for a while, finding ourselves in a hole, we are going to continue digging. But greatly to their credit, it looks like the legislature, instead of slashing whole programs as “not needed” or “not core government programs” is working to keep the services alive-imperfect as they are-awaiting better times.
