What Would Will Rogers Do?

As the vast majority of Oklahomans struggled in recent years with stagnant wages, inadequate health care, rising prices and tuition costs, the state legislature enacted tax cuts that benefited the wealthy.

The tax cuts have hurt educational funding at all levels and left no extra money for impoverished families. Oklahoma is a state with a staggering number of hungry, poor children, according to recent reports.

This has been the modus operandi of the Republican Party over the last several years, and, in red-states like Oklahoma, this means many Democrats have also participated in one of the nation’s largest shifts of wealth in its history. The fix is in. The rich get tax cuts. The poor and middle class get low wages and higher prices.

Meanwhile, the rich increasingly become the only people who can afford to donate substantial money to politicians, who then help them obtain even more wealth through even additional tax cuts and other incentives. This is called politics when it should be called bribery.

As Oklahoma’s own Will Rogers once put it, “Be it pestilence, war, or famine, the rich get richer and poor get poorer.”

Of course, Rogers could not have even fathomed the disparity in incomes between the rich and everyone else in this country these days. The greed of a few is threatening the financial security of an entire country. What else is new, right?

So it should come as no surprise that new facts sheets show state revenues have decreased by several million dollars in recent years because of tax cuts that mainly benefited Oklahoma’s wealthiest citizens.

That is the determination of the Oklahoma Policy Institute, which recently issued fact sheets dealing with the state's recent tax cuts.

OK Policy notes that if tax revenue had been allowed to grow at its historical average, the state would have collected $429 million more in the 2008 fiscal year. Instead, the legislature cut taxes, and the wealthiest benefited the most, according to OK Policy.

According to a press statement issued by OK Policy, “…the wealthiest fifth of households receive 73 percent of the benefit from lowering the top income tax rate, totaling $423 million, with the average household in the top fifth reaping annual tax savings of $1,421. By contrast, the bottom 40 percent of households will receive only 3 percent of the benefit from cutting the top rate, totaling $17 million, with the average household in the bottom 40 percent pocketing annual savings of under $30.”

There are still some people in this state, most notably The Oklahoman editorial writers, who claim the recent tax cuts did not primarily benefit the rich. But the facts have consistently proved them wrong. The legislature squandered an opportunity to move the state forward to help out the richest people in Oklahoma. It is that simple.

The wealthiest in our state and country now own the political system, and they will manipulate it to obtain even more wealth.

"During this time of robust economic growth in our state, it is unfortunate that decisions made in recent years have squandered what could have been a real opportunity to create a better educated, healthier and more economically competitive state," said Matt Guillory, Executive Director of Oklahoma Policy Institute, in the press statement.