I voted no on the general appropriations’ bill passed by the Legislature. While this nearly $13 billion budget did some good things, it granted little tax relief, even though it left nearly $1 billion unassigned.
The House passed multiple tax relief measures, including one that would have lowered income tax by 0.25% and one to remove the state portion of the grocery sales tax. The Senate refused to hear these, instead saying we needed to be cautious with our money. Problem is, this isn’t government’s money. It belongs to the taxpayers.
This is the largest budget we’ve ever passed in our state. It’s almost double what was appropriated just seven years ago. My question and that of several others on tax relief is, if not now, when? We have almost $4 billion in state savings and now a billion unencumbered. What are we doing? We’re certainly not being conservative. Instead, we’ve grown government.
In addition to my no vote on the overall appropriation’s bill, I voted no on a few others. One of those was House Bill 1031X, which creates the Oklahoma Housing Stability Program. This would allow the Oklahoma Housing Finance Agency to issue 0% interest loans using taxpayer dollars to homebuilders to build affordable homes, but the buyers of these homes would have to pay full interest on their mortgage loans. It’s just wrong to incentivize builders but not to actually offer the same assistance to the people that need affordable homes in which to live.
Another measure is House Bill 1011X, which authorizes the Oklahoma Capitol Improvement Authority to use funds in the newly created Legacy Capital Financing Fund to finance several construction projects on state buildings, including the Capitol. One of these projects involves a day care facility that would cost about $56,000 per child served to build. There’s also some question about whether we would have to continue paying the bond debt on at least one of the projects even while we loan the money to complete it. That would be double paying.
House Bill 1026X would give several elected officials pay raises beginning after the next election cycle. It would tie the governor’s and other elected officials’ pay to judicial salaries. The argument is these salaries haven’t been raised in a number of years and the governor now makes less than some agency heads. My bill that would bring this issue to a vote of the people was never heard. I’d much rather the people decide this issue than just other elected officials.
As always, if I can help you with anything, feel free to call my Capitol office at (405) 557-7413 or email me at rick.west@okhouse.gov.
- Rick West serves District 3 in the Oklahoma House of Representatives. His district includes part of LeFlore County.
Get Local News!
