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 presented three sensible reforms that would help the state make better tax and budgeting decisions. A guest post from OETA Board Chair James Utterback explained why public television is vital for Oklahoma.
Also this week, we released a new issue brief and a related blog post that makes the case for preserving the state’s income tax. Stateline spoke to OK Policy Director David Blatt for a story on the difficulties faced by states that attempt to eliminate the income tax. See more issue briefs, fact sheets, blog posts, and media coverage related to the tax debate on our tax reform information page.
Yesterday we shared a video from Oklahoma Watch about overcrowding and rising costs in Oklahoma prisons.
In the Know, Policy Notes
- A report from the American Immigration Council answers some basic questions about the role of immigration in today’s economy.
- Amazon is throwing “strong support” to a new Senate bill that would allow states to compel online vendors to collect sales taxes.
- Demos explains why cutting poverty is not rocket science, if we have the political will.
- A supplemental poverty measure from the U.S. Census shows even more people living in poverty than was previously thought.
- Stateline reports on the pitfalls faced by efforts in several states to eliminate the income tax.
- 23 – Number of earthquakes in Oklahoma this weekend, including the strongest earthquake ever recorded in the state.
- 58 percent – Percentage of FDIC-insured institutions in Oklahoma with earnings gains as of June 2011, compared to just 36 percent during the same period in 2009.
- 7th – Oklahoma’s rank among the states for the export value of its wheat crop – worth $363, 900,000 million dollars in 2010
- 3.2 million – Metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions avoided annually in Oklahoma through wind power generation, 2010
- 10.4 percent – Percentage of Oklahoma small businesses (<500 employees) owned by veterans, compared to 9 percent nationally, 2007
