Republicans advocate making people happy. Urge abolishing property taxes. Will fund education, health care, public safety, infrastructure, the courts, counties, roads and other stuff the usual way … with hot air, long speeches and prayer.
Our Republican lawmakers are if nothing else consistent. Going back to my first sessions in the late 1970s they always say the right things – we support our kids, our seniors, our environment, our roads, our everything – and then when given the chance to prove it, they punch their red buttons on the voting machines, which registers a no vote.
And it doesn’t matter whether we are last in per capita funding for our school kids – we are – or have more unhealthy people as a percentage of the population than any other state – yep, true again – or have more turnpike miles than anywhere else except New Jersey because we want the lowest gasoline tax per gallon than anybody; and other indicators important as measurements for citizens’ quality of life.
The Edmond Council members pictured with this Oklahoman article speak the truth about the impact of property tax reductions/abolishment for their city, county and even our state. They have hard jobs; are closer to the people than legislators who meet in The People’s Building, many miles away from where their constituents live. Ditto for school board members who are very much on the front line of democracy, balancing the needs of the students they serve with revenue they have little control over creating.
Cutting taxes is fun and popular. Raising them is, to say the least, not fun and surely unpopular. I know directly about this issue having authored several such bills through the decades that I was employed by the voters in both our state House and Senate. Sales, income, corporate, gaming, cigarettes, a lottery – all were targets of mine with money raised and earmarked to public education and public health.
Gov. Kevin Stitt and his co-conspirators in the Legislature already have put Oklahoma in deficit territory for FY 2027 due to several reductions in the state’s personal income tax, now 4.75% rather than 7.25% recently.
Additionally, the franchise tax is non-existent; the corporate tax just a shell of its former self, all in the name of economic development.
Regardless, major national and international companies have taken long looks at us for significant corporate investments and most have said nyet! However, massive water and energy consumers, known as AI data centers, are circling Oklahoma like piranhas, but they offer little longterm employment in permanent numbers after initial construction.
But maybe, since we have numerous, large warehouses sitting empty, the feds will come back with more proposals to turn them into holding facilities for soon to be deported illegal, and the occasional legal, immigrant and/or citizens.
And why not? It was the common but noisy Oklahoma City residents who put the end to the speculation for one on South Council Road, not far from Western Heights schools. If Stitt actively worked to stop the conversion from warehouse for material to warehouse for humans, I missed it.
Bottom line of this too long column? The 2026 session of the legislature opens today. Better you know in advance what’s going on rather than after the fact and there’s no reason for you not to stay informed and even involved.
The governor, House and Senate all have excellent and easy to use websites covering legislation, committee actions and even floor debate and votes.
Admittedly such viewing may not be as fun and interesting as, say, Wheel of Fortune or American Idol; however, what the 149 lawmakers are up to the next four months, while more boring, will undoubtedly be more important to you and your family in both the short and long term.
Don’t believe me? As I mentioned in an earlier post about a new proposal to license female dancers at strip clubs, you never know what these goobers may come up with before departing our fair city in barely 120 days.
Maybe male strip club licensing for when The Chippendales visit our God-fearing, church-attending, tithe-giving houses of worship … or maybe not.
After all, what’s the harm in boys being boys?
