Topic: Budget & Tax

Responsibility to fund Oklahoma services rests with “we the people” (Capitol Update)

By: Steve Lewis
June 26, 2015 // Updated: May 2, 2019
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.… Read more [More...]

Taking a little off the top

By: David Blatt
June 24, 2015 // Updated: May 1, 2019
This past session, as Oklahoma grappled with a $611 million budget shortfall, a lot was heard about off-the-top apportionments, or tax revenues that are allocated directly to various funds without legislative appropriation. In this year’s State of the State address,… Read more [More...]

Where are they now? Bills we followed this session (Part 2)

By: Gene Perry
June 22, 2015 // Updated: May 2, 2019
Last week on the blog, we talked about what happened with key bills related to education and criminal justice in this year’s legislative session. In this post, we’ll look at what happened around tax breaks, elections reform, and attempts to… Read more [More...]

The myth of state policy innovation (Guest Blog: David Schultz)

By: Guest
June 18, 2015 // Updated: May 2, 2019
David Schultz is a professor of political science at Hamline University. This article originally appeared in The Governing Institute website and is reposted with permission. Many state legislatures are not professional or full-time, or they lack extensive research staff to… Read more [More...]

Budget challenge asks, “What part of ‘nothing but appropriations’ do you not understand?”

By: David Blatt
June 15, 2015 // Updated: May 1, 2019
Early in May, former State Representative Mike Reynolds, represented by Oklahoma City attorneys Jerry Fent and Ted Pool, filed a lawsuit against Governor Mary Fallin and other officeholders on behalf of the taxpayers of Oklahoma. The suit challenges how the… Read more [More...]

Fear of sound bite motivates bad budget decisions (Capitol Updates)

By: Steve Lewis
June 12, 2015 // Updated: May 1, 2019
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.… Read more [More...]

Flat funding still means cuts for Oklahoma’s core services

By: David Blatt
June 9, 2015 // Updated: May 2, 2019
In crafting a budget in the face of a large drop in available revenue, lawmakers this year made a sincere effort to minimize cuts to key agencies in the areas of education, health, and safety. Whereas most agencies took cuts… Read more [More...]

Three kinds of critics of state budget deal (Capitol Updates)

By: Steve Lewis
June 5, 2015 // Updated: May 1, 2019
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.… Read more [More...]

Slashing taxes further is not the path to a strong economy

By: Gene Perry
June 3, 2015 // Updated: May 2, 2019
When any company leaves Oklahoma, it can mean hard times for the employees and their families. As a state and a community, we should offer support to those families and make sure workers have what they need to move on… Read more [More...]

FY 2016 Budget Highlights

By: Gene Perry
June 2, 2015 // Updated: May 2, 2019
OK Policy’s annual Budget Highlights issue brief is one of the most informative and accessible ways to track Oklahoma’s public spending. Read more... [More...]