An interactive map and a recent in-depth New York Timesarticle raise the question progressives here have grappled with for a long time: Why do red-state Oklahomans increasingly vote against their own financial interests by electing conservatives?
I've been asking that question on Okie Funk since at least 2006 following the publication of Thomas Franks' book What's The Matter With Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America. In the book, Franks argues that conservative politicians use cultural wedge issues, such as abortion, to win votes while promoting an ideology that is financially detrimental to most people's lives in places like Kansas and Oklahoma.
A drastic income tax cut proposal easily sailed through an Oklahoma legislative subcommittee this week, and that doesn't bode well for the state's future revenues.
House Bill 3038, sponsored by 23 legislators, passed in a 9 to 1 vote of the House Appropriations and Budget Subcommittee on Revenue and Taxation. The bill, if approved and signed into law, would lower the top income tax rate from 5.25 to 3 percent and then gradually reduce the rate through 2022 when it would be eliminated altogether.
(I'm speaking today about Okie Funk and Blue Oklahoma to a journalism class at the University of Central Oklahoma, and I was provided several written questions by students in the class. For the sake of the historical and cultural record about this blog and the rise of New Media platforms in general, I'm answering three of the questions here in this post.--Kurt Hochenauer)
Is it difficult to be a liberal blogger in Oklahoma? What was your biggest obstacle?
It's difficult to discern what Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt gained politically by opting out of a massive national bank settlement dealing with the mortgage crisis and striking his own deal for the state.
Obviously, some people, including the writer of this New York Observer article, are questioning whether Pruitt sold out Oklahomans to curry favor with the banking, insurance and real estate industries, which were heavy contributors to his 2010 campaign.
I'm going to argue a position that might seem counter intuitive to progressives here: They should support, not oppose, raises for judges and elected statewide officials that are supposed to go into effect soon.
Of course, the raises are not going to happen. Both leading legislative Republicans and Democrats are vowing to stop the raises, and they have the apparent blessing of The Oklahoman, the state's largest right-wing media outlet.
First, her proposal to drastically cut the state income tax starting in 2013 makes it highly likely there will be some type of tax cut this upcoming legislative session. Fallin is a fairly popular governor, leading a surging Oklahoma Republican Party. It's doubtful there could be enough GOP in-fighting or a large enough corporate-funded television advertisement campaign, if any, to stop the measure through generating popular opposition.
For years now, social conservatives have proposed a litany of extremist legislation and ballot amendments that rile progressives, who spend energy fighting what they deem as ideology-driven and unnecessary initiatives.
The approved amendment banning the use of Sharia law in Oklahoma courts, now blocked by a federal court, is one such example. The amendment, based on a false premise, was passed by voters in a 2010 landslide vote in what can be viewed as collective, fear-inspired hysteria cultivated by a mixture of xenophobia and religious intolerance.
(Will Oklahoma progressives get shut out of the political debate this legislative session? What type of progressive political agenda, if any, could be successful? In posts this week, DocHoc is giving his preview of the 2012 Oklahoma Legislature.)
Let me start with the caveat that the record is clear that I do NOT support any cut to the state income tax right now because such a cut, even if it's relatively small, could lower education and social-program funding.
With recent state budget cuts, that's the last thing that needs to happen in Oklahoma right now.
I've expressed my opinion about the issue here, in the Oklahoma Gazette and elsewhere.
(Will Oklahoma progressives get shut out of the political debate this upcoming legislative session? What type of progressive political agenda, if any, could be successful? In posts this week, DocHoc is giving his preview of the 2012 Oklahoma Legislature.)
A few years ago, one of my politically active conservative friends and I were having a heated political discussion that ended with him assuring me that the state would retain a large extremely conservative majority of voters for at least our lifetimes.
A bill that could abolish tenure and threaten academic freedom at state college campuses has been introduced in the Oklahoma Legislature.
State Rep. Corey Holland, a Republican from Marlow, has introduced House Bill 2598, an approximately four-page measure that, if approved, would put professors and administrative staff on an annual contract system. The bill states that " . . . on or after July 1, 2013, no administrative or instructional personnel may be awarded tenure, a multiyear contract, or a continuing contract . . ." College presidents would be exempted from the measure.
At the end of William Faulkner's brilliant 1936 novel Absalom, Absalom!, Quentin Compson is asked why he hates the South, which leads to one of the most famous last paragraphs in American literature:
"I don't hate it," Quentin said, quickly, at once, immediately; "I don't hate it," he said. I don't hate it, he thought, panting in the cold air, the iron New England dark: I don't. I don't! I don't hate it! I don't hate it!
Of course, as readers we know it's quite clear Quentin's repeated protests leave open the interpretation that he does, in fact, hate the South.
I've been trying to respond to each of The Oklahoman editorials, published on NewsOK.com, that criticize that Occupy Wall Street movement to highlight the sheer inanity and cluelessness of perhaps the most conservative newspaper in the country.
The newspaper, which is now owned by Colorado billionaire Philip Anschutz, doesn't "get" the Occupy movement, and it has undoubtedly spent thousands of words proving it. But what the newspaper lacks in basic cultural understanding it makes up for in ad hominem, demeaning attacks on people who basically want a decent economic future for themselves.
By Nathaniel Batchelder
Director, Peace House Oklahoma City
Pray cooler heads will guide America in the dialogue and decision-making over Iran's position in the world. Iran does not have nuclear weapons, and there is no certain evidence that such a program is under way. Certainly Iran has the right to the peaceful use of nuclear energy, and the interests of world peace demand that these issues be resolved without military action that could launch a catastrophic war.
Another war would destroy America's painful recovery from the indebtedness of two wars and the 2008 economic crash. Gasoline prices would probably go up another dollar per gallon. The Iraq and Afghanistan war's final costs will exceed $2 trillion. Some estimates say $4 trillion, or even $6 trillion, including lifelong care for veterans physically or emotionally disabled.
It's not often that members of Oklahoma's ultra-conservative Congressional delegation, including U.S. Sens. Jim Inhofe and Tom Coburn, and I agree on an issue, but the growing opposition to the SOPA and PIPA bills has created an interesting coalition of disparate proportions.
The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), pending in the U.S. House of Representatives, and the Protect IP Act (PIPA), pending in the U.S. Senate, are terrible bills that obviously threaten free speech in this country. Oklahoma's Congressional delegation is waking up to that point, and we should support them on this extremely important issue.
A qualified decision by the President Barack Obama administration to deny, at least for now, a permit to construct the Keystone XL pipeline, which would originate in Canadian tar sands and go through Oklahoma, was met with incredulous, political hyperbole by Gov. Mary Fallin.
Her reaction ignores any potential environmental impact caused by the pipeline's construction, the possibility of a catastrophic spill here in Oklahoma and the country's overwhelming need to reduce its dependence on foreign fossil fuels and develop clean and renewable energy sources.
The GOP push to grant personhood to human embryos, which can be viewed as an attack against contraceptive methods, is yet another absurd side show to needlessly incite a segment of the Oklahoma Republican voting base this year, but such an extremist law would surely face a major lawsuit and would never be enacted.
Even Mississippi voters-yes, MISSISSIPPI--voted down a similar measure last year. That's one of the places Oklahoma often competes with in the race to create the nation's first official Christian state theocracy.
I always enjoy listening to the Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have A Dream" speech, given on Aug. 23, 1963, when we celebrate his life each year.
I wonder what our world would be like without King's achievements? This year, I wonder, too, what King would think about our corporate-controlled political world and the burgeoning protests against it. It's going to be an interesting spring and summer in this nation as protesters hit the streets.
The annual Oklahoma City parade honoring King's life will begin at 2 p.m. Monday, Jan. 16. It begins at NW 7th Street and Broadway Ave. and then proceeds down Broadway to Sheridan. Here's a listing of some events. There will be special tributes this year to local civil rights activist Clara Luper, who died last June. I wrote about Luper's life here.
State Rep. Mike Reynolds' legislative proposal that could prevent gay people from serving in the Oklahoma National Guard and state Rep. Sally Kern's obsession with supposedly protecting Oklahomans from Sharia Law when they go to court are really just bigoted, freaky sideshows to the main GOP play this year: Cutting taxes for rich people and cutting state government.
Progressives, of course, should always raise their voices against intolerance and hate, but both Reynolds' and Kern's legislative proposals are unlikely to get much traction this year and would obviously face court battles if passed. The two Republican Oklahoma City legislators might want to motivate the GOP base by assuring it discrimination against gay people and Muslims still remains a priority for the party this election year, but, at this juncture, it seems the general, faux anti-Obama hysteria-some of which is also based on bigotry-will be more than enough to assure a large voter turnout.
A recent editorial in The Oklahoman that argues the state "top income tax rate is too high" is an indication that Republicans and the corporate power structure here have cemented a plan to reduce the income tax again this coming legislative session.
It's highly unlikely the plan can be stopped. The activists who oppose the upcoming cut do so with the best intentions but specific efforts and the money spent to try to stop it might be better used developing and implementing long-range initiatives to bring more political balance to state government.
Two recent public announcements here illustrate the state GOP's health-care philosophy, which is to protect the profits of insurance companies at whatever cost to patients.
First, it was announced that Republican Gov. Mary Fallin, at the request of Republican Oklahoma Insurance Commissioner John Doak, signed a new rule that eliminates birth as a qualifying event for health insurance, which means some parents could conceivably be faced with huge hospital costs if their newborn baby has severe medical problems. The reason given for the rule is that it would encourage more insurance companies to offer policies in Oklahoma. This, so goes the doublespeak, could actually mean more children overall would be covered. Thus, some children won't be covered so other children will be covered only to ensure insurance companies' profits.
This is a community blog operated since 2006 by people dedicated to promoting and restoring progressive values in Oklahoma. A courageous band of patriots, we fight right-wing tyranny in one of the reddest of red states. Do you want to help by posting here? Do you want traffic back to your blog or site? We welcome posts written by liberals and centrist to conservative Democrats and Independents. Register above and start posting. Crossposting is allowed. Questions? Contact kurt.hochenauer@gmail.com.
Be sure to check us out on Facebook and Twitter.
Subscribe in a reader
