It is progressives who are credited with creating the environment of our “welfare state” and the subsequent entitlement philosophy that many of our citizens today embrace as “rights.” Matthew Spalding, in his bestselling book entitled, We Still Hold These Truths: Rediscovering Our Principles, Reclaiming Our Future, notes, “A ...

I’ve written before about the defenders of the status quo in common education. Hopelessly stuck in the last century, they seem to think “you’re doin’ fine, Oklahoma.” Unfortunately, this appears to be a problem in higher education as well. In his most recent column in The Journal Record, law professor Andrew Spiropoulos, who ...

State spending is at an all-time high. The most significant driver of state spending growth is federal funds, or what tax users like to think of as “free” money. It is the federally induced welfare programs, such as Medicaid, that require ever-increasing state funding matches for the programs’ exploding costs. (Michael S. Gre...

A mantra from self-described “progressives” in Oklahoma is that the middle class is shrinking and “the rich” don’t pay their fair share of taxes. Despite this exercise in the politics of envy, the Oklahoma Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR) tells a different story. The CAFR is the primary means of reporting the stat...

Last year a state senator from Little Dixie made the astonishing claim that Oklahoma’s public schools “are doing a great job in educating our students.”That remark came to mind this month when the latest edition of Education Week’s Quality Counts was released. Oklahoma received a “D” grade for student performance. Also releas...

Last week I touched on the nature of the early progressive movement at the turn of the 20th Century. You can think of the progressive movement as anti-constitutionalism. It’s an idea that academics and writers developed that challenges the fundamental principles of “fixed truths” or “inalienable rights.” This movement thrived...

OCPA has previously recommended that the state no longer give taxpayer dollars to the Oklahoma Educational Television Authority (OETA). Oklahoma would not be unusual in taking such an approach, as 17 other states do not provide state funding for public television. When you take a dollar from someone you make them less free, s...

In a recent column published in The Lawton Constitution (“Phaseout would create an economic boom,” January 24), I suggested that “Oklahoma should phase out its personal income tax and replace it with nothing. No property tax increases. No sales tax increases. Nothing.”I gave three reasons why, perhaps the most important of wh...

Taxpayers and job creators in Kansas and Oklahoma have to be encouraged that policymakers in both states are taking seriously the undeniable fact that the lowest-tax-burden states and the no-income-tax states soundly outperform the nation when it comes to economic growth. The state of Illinois is a testament to this reality.K...

The problems with Oklahoma’s workers’ compensation system are well known. According to the latest edition of Rich States, Poor States: ALEC-Laffer State Economic Competitiveness Index, Oklahoma ranks a woeful 47th among the 50 states, with average workers’ compensation costs of $2.87 per $100 of payroll.Next month OCPA will r...

There is disdain for our Constitution and Declaration of Independence among many of the elitists in high political office and it’s at the core of what is troubling America. In fact, there is solid evidence to support the belief that we wouldn’t be in the economic peril we find ourselves today if we would only adhere to the te...

The weeping and wailing from the left and from various tax users about the state’s “crumbling infrastructure,” which is cited as proof of a shortage of state revenue, is an oft-told sob story. What they don’t want you to know, however, is that state spending is at an all-time high.Yes, it is true that some of the state’s infr...

Public education is being redefined. More and more, people are coming to understand that “public education” simply means “educating the public”—and it doesn’t matter where that education takes place.Pennsylvania state Sen. Anthony H. Williams, a liberal black Democrat, says “an innovative and productive public education syste...

I guess you can file this under, “This is America, isn’t it?” Well, that’s what one Idaho couple is no doubt still wondering. Mike and Chantell Sackett paid $23,000 for some property in 2005 and two years later decided to build a three bedroom house. Workers spent three days filling in a half acre of land with dirt and rock, ...

I recently addressed the scare tactic used by our friends on the left and various tax users who claim that “property taxes will increase” if the state phases out its personal income tax. We have recently received great feedback regarding this subject. One correspondent wrote to me and asked: “On point three, doesn't it natura...

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Though I don’t embrace the blanket assertion that “Oklahoma needs more college graduates,” I do believe Oklahoma needs more STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) graduates.Fortunately, many people are working toward that end. For example, an organization called Laying the Foundation, working in conjunction ...

On November 29, 2011, OCPA and Art Laffer, Ph.D., an economic adviser to President Ronald Reagan, released the findings of a new research study evaluating the economic benefits of phasing out Oklahoma's personal income tax over a 10-year period. One of the report’s key findings is that eliminating Oklahoma's personal income t...

Right before the Christmas break, members of the State Board of Equalization (BOE), which is chaired by Gov. Mary Fallin, gave a gift to Oklahoma citizens and taxpayers. The gift by the members came in the form of a wise move while conducting their duties to establish the preliminary revenue certification estimate. Citizens o...

I suspect the well-established, profitable horse-and-buggy industry paid little attention to this fellow Henry Ford, tinkering in his little shop. And oftentimes it seems that officials in Oklahoma’s higher-education system are similarly obtuse, thinking the status quo can last forever.It can’t, and it won’t. “Dramatic change...