Putting steroids into the Oklahoma economy

January 13, 2011

"I would make the case that Oklahoma faces not just a budget deficit today, but a more serious growth deficit. The state isn’t growing fast enough in jobs, capital, new businesses, or population to create the tax revenue base to sustain government spending." That sounds like something from this month's issue of Perspective, but in fact economist Stephen Moore penned those words nearly seven years ago. Mr. Moore, now an editorial board member of The Wall Street Journal, continued: "Given Oklahoma’s growth deficit, now would be a particularly opportune time to cut income tax rates and accelerate the state’s economic recovery. The income tax should be cut in half, and a 10-year plan should be put into effect to eliminate the income tax altogether by dedicating some portion of the natural growth in tax revenues to phasing down the tax rate to zero. "In other words, use the growth dividend to cut taxes rather than to increase spending. The effect would be like putting steroids into the Oklahoma economy." Good advice then, good advice now.