Articles
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Budget & Tax
Bergstrom pursues Oklahoma income-tax repeal
Oklahoma’s personal income tax rate would be immediately reduced and then gradually eliminated under legislation filed by state Sen. Micheal Bergstrom.Ray Carter | November 20, 2024
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Budget & Tax
Oklahoma pension changes may have been based on myth
Oklahoma’s landmark pension reforms made the state a national model, but lawmakers’ election-year temptations continually threaten to undo the progress.Ray Carter | November 4, 2024
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Budget & Tax, Energy
ESG study highlights danger for Oklahoma taxpayers
Oklahoma’s anti-ESG law is based on sound financial principles that maximize taxpayer benefits and deter attacks on our energy sector. Pension officials should stop fighting this sensible law and instead embrace it.Jonathan Small | November 4, 2024
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Budget & Tax
Experts warn Oklahoma pension changes could harm state finances
Pension experts warned state lawmakers that reversing course on Oklahoma’s landmark pension reforms will do little to improve employee recruitment and much to harm funding for a wide range of services, including schools.Ray Carter | October 10, 2024
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Budget & Tax
Migration data show Oklahoma losing taxpayers under age 35
Oklahoma has been gaining taxpayers from the rest of the country—but has been losing out on taxpayers under the age of 35.Curtis Shelton | October 8, 2024
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Budget & Tax, Health Care
Oklahoma Medicaid-expansion critics proven right
Conservatives warned that the projected costs were unrealistic, lowball estimates and that spending would quickly surge, forcing lawmakers to divert millions from other uses. We were right.Jonathan Small | September 30, 2024
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Budget & Tax
Expanding Medicaid to able-bodied adults costs taxpayers $2.5 billion
A new report from an Oklahoma fiscal watchdog shows that Medicaid expansion will cost taxpayers an additional $2.5 billion next year and ultimately force lawmakers to divert hundreds of millions of state taxpayer dollars from other uses.Ray Carter | September 11, 2024
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Budget & Tax
Oklahoma business owners say income-tax cuts needed
A recent survey of Oklahoma business owners and executives found that 78 percent favor reducing or eliminating the state income tax.Ray Carter | September 10, 2024
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Budget & Tax
A look at Oklahoma CareerTech spending
Adjusted for inflation, state appropriations to Oklahoma CareerTech are lower than they were two decades ago.Curtis Shelton | August 30, 2024
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Budget & Tax
Oklahoma grocery-tax change: A tax cut for the rich?
Class-warfare arguments decrying an income-tax cut as a benefit for “the rich” ignore the fact that the same thing holds true for repeal of the sales tax on groceries. Oklahoma’s upper-income households get much more benefit from the grocery tax repeal than lower-income households do.Ray Carter | August 29, 2024