The legislative leaders and governor are acting willfully delusional. They have this notion that as long as they don't utter the dreaded 't' word (tax), then they can pass any revenue bill at any time and with only a mere majority of the yeas & nays. About 25 years ago, the people of Oklahoma did an end-run around our own arrogant legislature by passing a citizen initiative ballot question. The result was an amendment to our state constitution which requires... "any bill intended to raise revenue to be submitted to a vote of the people at the next general election before it can be enacted". An alternative enactment can be expedited if 75% of the full authorized membership of both houses and a governor's signature. But in neither case can those proposals be passed in the last 5 days... Even with 100% support! The panic of these past weeks has been the bureaucratic fear that the current funding levels of state government cannot be secured without the new money raised by these revenue-raising bills. Absolutely no one believes these tobacco bills, car sales tax bills, petroleum production taxes, or any number of other rushed schemes is about anything other than grabbing money from the taxpayers. |
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Sooner Politics
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