Articles

Clearly, maximizing GDP isn’t the same as maximizing economic well-being. The family plays a crucial role in a country’s determinant of economic well-being, and the family is grossly misrepresented in official U.S. economic statistics.

Oklahoma taxpayers have no direct way to judge whether or not they are getting a good "bang for the buck" for the goods and services provided by the public sector.

Oklahoma's share of President Obama's federal "stimulus" package will come to approximately $2.6 billion over two years-or an average of $1.3 billion per year. This certainly sounds like a lot of money, but it pales in comparison to what the federal government already sends to Oklahoma.

Personal income is an important economic measure of a state's well-being. Higher levels of personal income mean that a state's residents are able to buy more goods and services such as homes, cars, education, and health care. It is also a very useful way to gauge the ability of a state's residents to pay taxes.

The chart below shows the composition of Oklahoma's state and local tax burden, as a percent of personal income, from fiscal year (FY) 1950 to 2008.

As we pointed out in these pages in December ("Overcrowding on the Government Gravy Train"), data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) indicate that Oklahoma's state and local government workforce is too big and is overpaid.

Personal income is an important economic measure of a state's well-being. Higher levels of personal income mean that a state's residents are able to purchase more goods and services such as homes, cars, education, and health care.

Government gets its money by either taxing the private sector or borrowing from the private sector. In extreme cases, the government can print its own money.

It takes 18 Oklahomans in the private sector to fund one Oklahoma state government job.

The compensation of Oklahoma’s government employees exceeds that of their private-sector counterparts. But a bigger problem is that we simply have too many government employees in this state: Oklahoma’s ratio of government employment to private-sector employment is a disturbing 5th highest in the country. Bringing this ratio in line with the national average would have saved Oklahoma taxpayers $2.8 billion last year.