Articles
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Budget & Tax
With State Spending at an All-Time High, Its Time to Right-Size Government
Oklahoma policymakers still spend millions of dollars on targeted earmarks (such as rodeos, golf courses, aquariums, and other non-essentials), hundreds of millions on inefficient health care programs (even though bipartisan solutions abound), and hundreds of millions on non-instructional K-12 activities in public schools.Jonathan Small | November 13, 2014
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Budget & Tax
Free Market Friday: Fortune favors the bold
Oklahoma is moving forward with a plan, Gov. Mary Fallin said, that will chart a course toward the gradual elimination of the state income tax. That was two years ago.Michael Carnuccio | November 7, 2014
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Budget & Tax
The ABCs of Big Government in Oklahoma
If state government is truly “starved” for dollars, one primary reason is that we spend so many of those dollars on duplicated, less-than-necessary, and sometimes downright silly ventures in government.Mike Brake | November 3, 2014
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Budget & Tax, Law & Principles
Free Market Friday: A threat to prosperity
This week, state Supreme Court justices heard arguments regarding the constitutionality of Senate Bill 1246, which cuts the state personal income tax if revenue targets are met. Those who oppose personal income tax cuts in Oklahoma are voicing their support for this challenge.Michael Carnuccio | October 17, 2014
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Budget & Tax, Education
A Textbook Case of Misplaced Priorities
Yes, it may present a management challenge, but this is the sort of problem the Heavener superintendent is paid $98,022 annually to solve.Brandon Dutcher | September 19, 2014
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Budget & Tax
Still waiting for transparency
We are still waiting for transparency from health related state agencies and hopefully these state agencies will follow the lead of the Oklahoma Tobacco Settlement Endowment Trust Board of Investors as it relates to transparency. Oklahomans’ health depends upon it.Jonathan Small | September 16, 2014
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Budget & Tax
Tax Cuts in Oklahoma and Kansas Fuel Small Businesses
Over the last decade, Oklahoma has been one of the most aggressive states in the country when it comes to reducing the burden of taxes on taxpayers. Since 2002, the top marginal individual income tax rate has fallen significantly—by 22 percent—to 5.25 percent from 6.75 percent.J. Scott Moody & Wendy Warcholik, Ph.D. | September 12, 2014
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Budget & Tax
Free Market Friday: Upsetting the status quo
Invention and innovation are disruptive. Just ask the makers of typewriters, rotary-dial telephones, or –increasingly – desktop computers. Economist Joseph Schumpeter called this process creative destruction.Michael Carnuccio | September 5, 2014
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Budget & Tax
Transportation regulations: dangerous and ineffective
Oklahoma prides itself as a place where people are free to do business. We should know better than to increase regulations in the name of “fairness” and a false kind of “competition”.Lauren Aragon | September 4, 2014
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Budget & Tax
Paul Krugman: Wrong on Taxes, Wrong on Kansas
Looking at the performance of the nine states with no income taxes versus the nine states with the highest income taxes, the performance results are fairly clear: no-income-tax states are vastly outperforming their high-tax counterparts and the national average.Will Freeman | September 2, 2014