OKPOLICY.ORG
What’s up this week at Oklahoma Policy Institute? The Weekly Wonk is dedicated to this week’s events, publications, and blog posts.
This week OK Policy refuted a claim by Senator Mike Mazzei that “special interests” were the real losers in the tax reform task force proposal. StateImpactOklahoma and Sen. Charles Wyrick both discussed our finding that the plan would amount to a tax increase for a majority of Oklahomans. We released an issue brief and a related blog post outlining Oklahoma’s Medicaid program and its eligibility requirements, breaking down its funding sources, and debunking some common Medicaid myths.
Also this week on our blog, we discussed how Arthur Laffer’s economic analysis of tax cuts is highly misleading, because his real goal is to tell politicians what they want to hear. A guest blog from Fab Lab Tulsa’s Matthew Norris presented the vision of an economy based on personal fabrication. This Land Press conducted a live interview with David Blatt about the history of OK Policy, our notable accomplishments, and some of the work we are doing now.
- 63.9 percent – Percentage of deliveries in Oklahoma paid for by SoonerCare (Medicaid).
- 3/5ths – Proportion of Oklahoma households who use natural gas as their primary energy source for home heating.
- 37.7 percent – Percentage of working-age Oklahomans with a disability who were employed in 2009
- 40th – Oklahoma’s rank among the states in amount of state and local taxes collected as a share of personal income, 2009
In The Know, Policy Notes
- The Center for American Progress looked at how far we still need to go to reach MLK Jr.’s dream of equal opportunity.
- Dean Baker discussed why Social Security is not in danger.
- Businessweek examined the perils of offering corporations tax incentives to relocate.
- The White House profiled the diversity of approaches and progress being made to establish state-based insurance exchanges.
