Perhaps if economics was a required subject in Oklahoma schools, citizens would understand that a good economy tends to the wellbeing of the citizens. All the citizens! If your country has a lot of billionaires, it likely has a whole lot more poor people. If a few people have most of the money and most of the power, it is neither a rich country nor a strong democracy. Money is power.
This is true of states, as well.
Lately, even a Fox News host questioned Gov. Kevin Stitt about the wisdom on passing a ban on abortion in a state where so many children live in poverty. He blasted her for quoting the Socialist Democrats. We have a free-market economy, he said.
What I heard was: It’s people’s fault if they’re poor.
God has a plan for every child that is born, he said.
So, if they’re born into poverty and can’t get out, who is at fault? Is it the poor person who didn’t drag herself out of the ditch or are poor people and hungry children part of God’s plan?
And what about that socialist Democrats bull? If a country doesn’t even properly tax wealthy businesses, they aren’t socialist. And for the record, countries like Russia and Venezuela who seize private companies and give them to their cronies are neither socialist nor communist; they are corrupt.
Russia’s billionaires didn’t get rich without help from the state. The billionaires are a ring of protection around the autocrat in power.
Gov. Stitt, like our former president, looks like an autocrat, quacks like an autocrat, and acts like an autocrat. Autocrats only tend to their power and their survival, and democracy dies.
You only need to watch the news to see that Oklahoma’s governor and lawmakers are funneling state money into private companies. Some of the names that pop up are Epic Charter Schools, Swadley’s, Canoo, and that unnamed company for which Stitt asked the Legislature to pass $700 million in rebates, this in a year when school funding remains flat, in a state that is 47th in per-pupil funding.
Unnamed? Yes.
Speaking with Fortune magazine, House Minority Leader Emily Virgin said, “The governor has not spoken to us about the bill, and it’s very concerning he would ask us to support something without giving us the bill number or language.”
At least they took the tax cuts off the table this year. Why bother with tax cuts when you can just pass bills to give the money away and expect legislators to ask no questions?
