This year, Democratic candidates have argued that Oklahoma is in far worse shape after years of Republican control. As someone who began his government career working in Oklahoma’s executive branch when Democrats were in charge, I can tell you that is not true.

In 2010, Oklahoma’s state pension systems were some of the worst-funded in the nation. For years, the Legislature voted to increase retiree benefits without increasing pension funding, which rapidly drained pension assets and threatened to rob future retirees of financial stability.

The Teachers Retirement System of Oklahoma was in the worst shape, being only 47.9 percent funded in 2010. But Republicans voted to end the practice of unfunded benefit increases, and they also shifted new government employees into a 401(k)-style system.

By 2025, the teachers’ system was 80-percent funded, the highest level achieved in its entire history, and on a path to become 100-percent funded by 2034. Many state pension systems are now either fully funded or near full-funded status.

Similarly, Oklahoma’s workers’ compensation costs were among the highest in the nation. Reforms enacted by Republican legislators since 2010 have totally changed that trajectory. According to one ranking, only 13 states have lower workers’ comp rates than Oklahoma does today, and three states are tied with Oklahoma. That has lowered the cost of business in Oklahoma by millions of dollars.

Oklahoma’s tax system is also much improved. Twenty years ago, our top personal income tax rate was 6.65 percent. Today, it is 4.5 percent and scheduled for gradual repeal. If our top rate had been left unchanged since 2006, Oklahoma would have the 12th-highest income-tax rate in the nation today.

Democrats have argued that our K-12 system plummeted under Republican control of government, claiming Oklahoma schools ranked 17th best in 2011, when Republicans first took full control.

But that ranking, from the Quality Counts report issued by Education Week, ranked Oklahoma 17th based on academic standards and teacher quality, not academic outcomes, for which the Quality Counts report gave Oklahoma a D in 2011.

In 2011, only six states scored notably worse than Oklahoma on National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) tests for fourth-grade reading. Sadly, Oklahoma still ranks in the bottom 10 on NAEP tests, but lawmakers have enacted meaningful reading reforms this year to address that problem and have also provided school-choice opportunities that allow families to access private education, regardless of their income.

The combined impact of all these policies has made Oklahoma a place where people are much more likely to thrive, and people from across the country are now flocking to Oklahoma at rates that leave most states envious.

It’s true, Oklahoma can still do better. But there’s no denying that Oklahoma was doing far, far worse in the not-so-distant past.