| A legislature which cannot help but to pander, is responsible for the massive growth of deficit spending in Oklahoma. For decades the Federal govt. has been practicing this same corrupted principle. Ever since Davy Crockett lost his Tennessee seat in the US Congress over a widow's pension vote; the bigger govt. has always fallen sucker to those who wish to suck off the big sow instead of growing up past the point where weaning should have occurred. Oklahoma schools eat up half our state treasury. If Alfalfa Murray had any inkling of this inevitability, there would have been yet another section in the state constitution to forbid the state from bearing the cost of an "Independent School District". Now the counties are crying over money for bridges and road projects.. |  |
Oklahoma's rural citizens created their own water districts, to care for their rural needs. Perhaps the state wants it that way? Power comes from paying for stuff (or withholding the same).
And the problem is getting worse. No one talks a conservative rant like Rep. Josh Cockroft. Yet for all his pontificating, he steered legislation to have the state take over a key role of cities & counties last year. He created a state 'authority' to run the 911 call system in the whole state. And he raised revenues by 50% on all of us, to do it.
Most cities created & managed their own emergency call centers and worked with local communications companies to make it work. At least 90% of Oklahoman's had a 3-digit number to access to get local responders in time of need. But to reach the lofty goal of 100% coverage, most of the state is now being taxed twice so some remote isolationist in the Winding Stair Mountains can call a sheriff without the burdensome 4 extra digits. Cities got state assistance, but the taxpayers now pay 50% more for it. And the 2 million who live around the largest metro areas are paying for rural local service, decades after building their own metropolitan versions.
When country folks needed a safe & reliable water source 50 years ago, they joined a Rural Water District. The big city folks didn't pay to get water to some hunting lodge down at the end of the remote dirt trails in the state. We have lost our way and we kept electing the slick-talking politicians who learned to spout the rhetoric with verbal skills they never intended to put into practice.
And the problem is getting worse. No one talks a conservative rant like Rep. Josh Cockroft. Yet for all his pontificating, he steered legislation to have the state take over a key role of cities & counties last year. He created a state 'authority' to run the 911 call system in the whole state. And he raised revenues by 50% on all of us, to do it.
Most cities created & managed their own emergency call centers and worked with local communications companies to make it work. At least 90% of Oklahoman's had a 3-digit number to access to get local responders in time of need. But to reach the lofty goal of 100% coverage, most of the state is now being taxed twice so some remote isolationist in the Winding Stair Mountains can call a sheriff without the burdensome 4 extra digits. Cities got state assistance, but the taxpayers now pay 50% more for it. And the 2 million who live around the largest metro areas are paying for rural local service, decades after building their own metropolitan versions.
When country folks needed a safe & reliable water source 50 years ago, they joined a Rural Water District. The big city folks didn't pay to get water to some hunting lodge down at the end of the remote dirt trails in the state. We have lost our way and we kept electing the slick-talking politicians who learned to spout the rhetoric with verbal skills they never intended to put into practice.
