I had the opportunity last month to travel to my hometown of Bartlesville for the dedication of the Keating Center for Capitalism, Free Enterprise, and Constitutional Liberty, a new institute housed at Oklahoma Wesleyan University. Dr. Brett Andrews, dean of the university’s Chesapeake Energy School of Business, asked if I wo...

For many years OCPA has drawn attention to the excessive bureaucratic overhead in Oklahoma’s public education system. Indeed, the system has nearly as many non-teachers as teachers. “The bureaucracy is now so big,” Dr. Greg Forster recently pointed out, “it takes up half the system.” In a new report, “The School Staffing Surg...

The Venus Flytrap, using a sweet aroma, tricks unsuspecting insects into landing on its leaves. These leaves then quickly close, trapping the soon-to-be-consumed insect whose struggles only cause the plant to speed up the fatal process. In much the same way, some states have expanded their Medicaid program after being tempted...

In an important decision last week that could have national ramifications, the Indiana Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the nation’s most expansive school-voucher program (nearly two-thirds of Indiana students are eligible, according to The New York Times).

“This opinion may be an important turning point in th...

The big spenders at the state Capitol are out with their prescription for public education, and it’s the same formula they always fall back on — “invest” in education by spending more money! There’s very little discussion of what that extra money might buy, where it would actually be spent, or who might be held accountable fo...

In a recent post (“$10,000 College Degree Is an Idea Worth Spreading”), I tipped my cap to Oklahoma State University president Burns Hargis, a former banker who recognizes the potential for increased productivity in higher education. “That’s what’s happened in business, and it’s what needs to happen in higher education,” Harg...

As we head into the second half of Oklahoma’s 2013 legislative session, conservatives continue to make the case for pro-growth tax cuts, while our friends on the left (liberals, progressives, socialists, whatever) continue to oppose them. As is the case with so many other issues, what we’re dealing with here is, at its root, ...

For some time now OCPA has made the case—in policy papers and newspaper columns and blog posts—that Oklahoma’s workers’ compensation system is so badly broken that it’s time to try a new approach—one that is primarily administrative, with a more limited role for the judiciary. In a column published last week in The Oklahoman,...

Yesterday, OCPA released its FY-2014 Budget Book, which contains our recommendations for the state’s appropriated budget for the upcoming fiscal year. It’s a budget that respects your family budget by focusing spending on core services and allowing for a modest tax cut that does not increase the tax burden for any Oklahoman. ...

“The entire premise of a market economy is that individuals, possessing better knowledge of their affairs, can allocate labor and capital far more effectively than any government,” Andrew Spiropoulos writes in his latest column. “A government must tax to pay for those public goods that benefit everyone. A wise government take...

As Oklahoma policymakers work in 2013 to accelerate the state’s upward economic trajectory, the state Senate’s effort to replace our adversarial workers’ compensation system with a more desirable administrative system appropriately takes center stage.Also on the table are income tax cuts. Gov. Mary Fallin and House Speaker T....

OCPA distinguished fellow Andrew Spiropoulos has long argued (see here and here, for example) that Oklahoma’s system for handling workers’ compensation claims is so badly broken that it’s time to transform the system to one that is primarily administrative, with a more limited role for the judiciary. OCPA fiscal policy direct...

OCPA’s articles have appeared not only in the likes of The Oklahoman and the Tulsa World, but indeed have been published in more than 200 newspapers—not only in Oklahoma, but throughout the United States.Whether it’s an article by our late distinguished fellow J. Rufus Fears (“Power of the purse can ‘redress every grievance’”...

I’ve blogged previously about a terrific video, “Oklahoma Doctors vs. Obamacare,” produced by the Reason Foundation, a venerable 44-year-old think tank in Los Angeles that has been praised by the likes of Milton Friedman, Steve Forbes, and John Stossel. OCPA recently hosted a room full of lawmakers to watch the video. Dr. Kei...

The 19th century French observer Alexis de Tocqueville famously warned of a form of despotism that could one day come to America. He was right, and indeed there are examples of it here in 21st century Oklahoma. In a column last week in The Journal Record, law professor Andrew Spiropoulos, who is teaching a course this semeste...

Oklahoma’s professional left (interest groups, journalists, philanthropists) continues to team up with the crony capitalist/health-care-provider complex to push for the Obamacare Medicaid expansion—just as they did for Obamacare itself. To her great credit, Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin is having none of it. She continues to stan...

Last week, the Oklahoma House of Representatives passed a bill to promote marriage as an indispensable weapon in the now decades-old “War on Poverty.” Authored by House Speaker T.W. Shannon (pictured above), House Bill 1908 would direct federal dollars — which the state receives as a part of the Temporary Assistance for Needy...

Tara Ross, author of the book Enlightened Democracy: The Case for the Electoral College, visited Oklahoma this week to educate policymakers on the “National Popular Vote” movement. Ross explains what would happen if National Popular Vote came to Oklahoma:

Jonathan V. Last, a senior writer at the Weekly Standard, has written a new book called What to Expect When No One's Expecting: America's Coming Demographic Disaster.Hats off to whoever's in charge of the publicity apparatus — I can't tell you how many times I've seen the book mentioned in print and in cyberspace. Most notabl...

During his State of the Union address last month, President Barack Obama proposed making “high-quality preschool available to every single child in America.”“In states that make it a priority to educate our youngest children — like Georgia or Oklahoma — studies show students grow up more likely to read and do math at grade le...