Oklahoma's High Court received the first of potentially many challenges to the several revenue bills being pitched as "merely" fees for a defined state service. The new tobacco assessments were designed in the last few hours of the 2017 regular session, after a major failure in bipartisan negotiations. Somehow the same $1.50 per pack that was pitched and rejected just a week earlier, got repackaged at the last minute as a simple fee, not intended to result in any revenue increase. And they did it with a straight face. Now the state's highest court has ordered the Attorney General to respond within 30 days. Oklahoma AG, Mike Hunter, said Thursday his office was reviewing the lawsuit. Gov. Mary Fallin, who is named as a defendant along with leaders of the state House and Senate and the Oklahoma Tax Commission, said she hopes the state's highest court "will deal with it expeditiously." |
In the two weeks since the Governor pitched her scheme to raise massive new taxes, so as to keep funding boondoggle projects, give away more taxpayer-funded gifts to special interests, give everyone a raise, and keep building a new temple at 23rd & Lincoln; Mary Fallin proposed massive tax hikes and massively-expanded service taxes on all services rendered. The House & Senate opposition is growing. George Faught posted a simple press release 10 days ago, and now nearly 30 of his colleagues from both houses are lining up with him, to condemn the Fallin Tax package. OCPA and AFP are just two of the conservative thinktanks calling for a legislative rejection. Republican Candidates are also making opposition to this package a keey talking point of their campaigns.
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Sooner Politics
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