Senators, Governor renege on tax pledge; Oklahoma Taxpayers Unite launched; Ritze harassed by pro-tax rep

Wednesday night the Oklahoma State Senate passed the massive package of tax increases that was approved earlier in the week by the State House, and the bills were signed by Governor Mary Fallin. The largest tax bill, HB1010XX, passed by 36-10, including three Taxpayer Protection Pledge-breakers: State Senators Kim David, David Holt (Oklahoma City's mayor-elect), and AJ Griffin. Gov. Fallin is also a Taxpayer Protection Pledge-breaker.

Most Candidates for Governor have been very quiet about these taxes, but State Auditor Gary Jones expressed his support for the tax hikes on Facebook. Candidate Kevin Stitt denounced the tax increase and signed the seven-point Oklahoma Taxpayer Platform unveiled on Wednesday by Oklahoma Taxpayers Unite.

Here is the Oklahoma Taxpayer Platform:

1. Fiscal Responsibility: We demand state and local government that is fiscally responsible, transparent and accountable. Heads of state agencies and local government entities should answer directly to elected officials. State agencies must be subjected to regular, independent fiscal and performance audits by the State Auditor and held accountable for the findings and recommended reforms. The 20 largest agencies should be audited no less than every 4 years. Establish a permanent, full-time Legislative Oversight Committee that is bipartisan, bicameral and has subpoena power. It will oversee each agency's mission and spending, and offer suggested legislation and reform, providing transparency and accountability.
2. Limited Government: Focus on priorities. Most Oklahomans agree that state and local government should focus on four basic areas: public safety, transportation and infrastructure, education, and a safety net for the most vulnerable. Encourage and protect self-responsibility and liberty in religious expression, occupation, health care, education, etc. The first instinct of elected officials should be to limit government's reach.
3. Structural Reform: We want structural reform to transform and eliminate governmental dysfunction, duplication and corruption. 500+ school districts are too many. Schools are bloated with administration. 500+ Agencies, Authorities, Boards, Trusts and Commissions are too much. Too many unelected officials are making decisions that affect taxpayers. Education and health would be better served by a dramatic downsizing of state bureaucracies, with more decisions made locally. We want fair legislative operating rules that do not abridge the right and responsibility of legislators to represent their constituents. Needed government services should be efficient and user-friendly.
4. Fair Taxation: Tax people in the least-burdensome way. Income taxes impose a discouraging penalty on work, productivity, personal responsibility, savings, investment, capital formation and entrepreneurial risk-taking. No income taxes of any kind should be levied by Oklahoma's state and local government. Shift Oklahoma's tax structure to focus on consumption. This will help Oklahoma become a magnet for private-sector both large and small job creators and productive individuals of all incomes. The key is to attract more taxpayers, spreading the cost of state and local services among more people and allowing for a lower tax burden on everyone.
5. Free-Market Environment: Preserve the gains made in Oklahoma in the past 20 years toward greater worker freedom and a less-adversarial legal climate. Remove unnecessary barriers set up by state and local government for many occupations. Encourage stronger market forces in health care, education, and other sectors, with less picking of winners and losers by government.
6. Criminal Justice System Reform: We need criminal justice reform that keeps citizens safe but doesn't lock people up unnecessarily. Oklahoma can't afford the bankrupting costs and social dysfunction that go with leading the nation in the rate of incarceration.
7. State Sovereignty: Provide a barrier between Oklahomans and Federal overreach that limits our Constitutional liberties. We cannot continue to let the Federal government impose restrictions, mandates and costs that infringe on our rights.

Oklahoma Taxpayers Unite reacted to the passage and signing of the tax increases with a news release:

In an era of big spending, big government, big egos and big lies, the passage of HB1010XX is a shameful slap in the face of Taxpayers and for many, a betrayal of their word of honor when they signed pledges NOT to raise taxes. Untrustworthy oath-breakers lead our state.

For eight years, Governor Fallin and the GOP have had super majorities in the both the state Senate and House. They've squandered their opportunity to make structural reforms and institute real fiscal responsibility in state government. Now we've been subjected to the obscene applause and joy as they celebrated their abject failure of leadership while violating the very principles of their own Oklahoma GOP Platform.

Governor Fallin and the legislative leaders who pushed this are an embarrassment to their party, bring national shame to our state, and have betrayed Taxpayers who elected them. State Question 640 specifically mandates that ALL new tax increases be sent to the Taxpayers for a vote. The 75% supermajority vote of both Houses was meant to be used only for a real emergency, which this is not. Numerous proposals have shown how the teachers can get a pay raise without raising taxes.

You can watch the complete Oklahoma Taxpayers Unite press conference on the KOKH website. In his remarks, former U. S. Sen. Tom Coburn compared the passage of the tax hikes to the dishonest and cowardly process he witnessed first-hand at the U. S. Capitol:

"It had the suspension of rules, the lack of ability to read the bill, the lack of ability to offer amendments," Coburn said. "And the only leadership you had was to spend more and have less responsibility and less transparency in government."

Just a little bit before the OTU press conference was to begin, State House Rep. Mike Ritze, an opponent of the tax hikes, was headed to the press room when Ritze was confronted loudly by State Rep. Josh West, who voted to raise taxes, according to this report from David Van Risseghem of Sooner Politics:

As Ritze was walking alone on the 4th floor, he says Rep. Josh West, a freshman Republican started yelling at him for participating in the taxpayer advocacy group's meeting. As West (a tall former military vet) got even closer, he screamed; "YOU'RE STARTING A CIVIL WAR!".

That outburst, and the encroaching movement caught the eye of a capitol public safety officer and he stepped up to the two house members. The presence of law enforcement evidently had a positive effect and West wisely recovered his senses & backed away.

This incident reminds me of the time a Tulsa City Council staffer went red with rage, shouting at me apparently because I came to the "pre-meeting" to report any action taken, camcorder in hand. Both situations seem to be a case of someone turning the guilt they feel at betraying the taxpayer against those who are exposing it.

Meanwhile, teachers are still going on strike, despite an average salary increase of $6,000 per year -- sorry, walkout. I'm told it isn't illegal because the teachers are only forbidden to strike in arbitration with their school board, to whom they are contracted, but in this case the school boards and administrators are in cahoots with the teachers and happy to send them to the State Capitol to shake the taxpayers down for more funds. Seems like there ought to be a law that restricts school administrators from closing school for political lobbying purposes. Even if the walkout doesn't violate the letter of the law, it surely violates the spirit and provides yet another example of why public-sector unions are a hazard to fiscal sanity and shouldn't be regarded in the same light as labor unions organizing workers in the private sector. Even Pres. Franklin Roosevelt, a friend to private labor unions objected to public-sector unions:

Meticulous attention should be paid to the special relations and obligations of public servants to the public itself and to the Government....The process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service.... A strike of public employees manifests nothing less than an intent on their part to obstruct the operations of government until their demands are satisfied. Such action looking toward the paralysis of government by those who have sworn to support it is unthinkable and intolerable.

Finally, Oklahoma Watch notes that the revenue sources that will produce the biggest share of the tax hike -- gross production tax, tobacco tax, fuel tax -- are highly volatile and may not consistently produce the revenue required for the pay increases that were also approved. That's rather rich, considering that the usual slam against the OCPA's plans for teacher pay raises without tax increases was that they used sources of revenue that weren't guaranteed year after year.