The $8.3 billion budget represents a modest increase from last year’s pandemic low. However, rather than trying to change Oklahoma’s overall trajectory through smart spending choices, lawmakers enacted tax cuts that will largely benefit out-of-state corporations, high-income households, and special interests.
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By:
Dave Hamby
May 13, 2021 // Updated: May 13, 2021
More than 100 days into this current legislative session, Oklahoma lawmakers emerged from weeks of closed door discussions to release details for the coming year’s state budget.
Based on the information presented during a Thursday afternoon media conference, we’re pleased…
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Time is closing in on legislators. The constitutional deadline for sine die adjournment is the last Friday in May, which this year May 28. But in the past few years the Legislature has recessed before the deadline to give itself…
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By:
Paul Shinn
April 26, 2021 // Updated: April 26, 2021
Oklahoma is one of few states where there is currently no introduced budget and limited discussion of budget priorities. Oklahoma is likely to once again wait until late in the legislative session to introduce a budget and then to bypass regular legislative rules to pass a budget in just a week or two with little to no public debate.
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By:
Paul Shinn
April 15, 2021 // Updated: April 14, 2024
Twelve years ago, I wrote this article to make a point about the essential role taxes play in our everyday lives. Since then, however, the real Oklahoma has moved closer to the one I feared in my dream.
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By:
Paul Shinn
April 7, 2021 // Updated: April 6, 2021
Lawmakers should set aside both of these bills and have a broader discussion about whether it's more important to broadly cut taxes than to provide public services, invest in our state’s future, save for the next economic downturn, or provide better-targeted tax reduction.
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By:
Paul Shinn
March 19, 2021 // Updated: March 19, 2021
Oklahoma’s corporate income tax is good public policy. Forty-four states have corporate income taxes like Oklahoma’s, and all but two of the remaining states tax business revenues.
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By:
Dave Hamby
March 11, 2021 // Updated: March 12, 2021
It’s been just three years since Oklahoma lawmakers passed a historic $531 million in additional state revenue to support education. On Thursday, the Oklahoma House approved a sweeping set of corporate and individual tax cuts that undoes that historic achievement…
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By:
Paul Shinn
March 2, 2021 // Updated: March 2, 2021
Every one of us will suffer if we don’t help those whose income, health, and food security have been most damaged by the pandemic. We have the means to provide that help, but we must find the will.
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By:
Steve Lewis
March 1, 2021 // Updated: March 1, 2021
House Speaker Charles McCall announced last week his intention to work on legislation to reduce the personal income tax and to eliminate the corporate income tax over five years. Last Tuesday, McCall removed his House Bill 2041 from the Rules…
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