Riding high on the oil boom of the late 2000s, the state followed the Kansas model and slashed taxes. But the promised prosperity never came. In many cases, it was just the opposite.Where's the "tax cuts always work" crew on this?
Around 20 percent of Oklahoma's schools now hold classes just four days a week. Last year, Highway Patrol officers were given a mileage limit because the state couldn't afford to put gas in their tanks. Medicaid provider rates have been cut to the point that rural nursing homes and hospitals are closing, and the prisons are so full that the director of corrections says they're on the brink of a crisis.
In her State of the State address Monday, Gov. Mary Fallin expressed the state's frustration.
"We have two clear choices," she said. "We can continue down a path of sliding backwards, or we can choose the second path, which is to say 'Enough is enough! We can do better! We deserve better! Our children deserve better, too!' "
Many of the tax cuts and subsequent revenue failures have happened on Fallin's watch. Now she wants to fix it, and she's gotten behind a large coalition of business leaders who have come up with a plan to raise taxes and enact reforms.
Tuesday, March 20, 2018
Another tax cut fail
I've noted many times how the Laffer inspired and endorsed tax cut experiment of Kansas had been a failure, but I think I had missed that Oklahoma had gone down a similar path to similar failure. From a report in February this year:
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