Ugly & Uglier

I have never heard sweeter words than the two words “sine die”, which for us means “time to adjourn”. This may well have been in the most brutal session in my tenure as a legislator. It is real hard for anyone to stay positive when the state budget has over a billion dollar hole in it. To be able to keep from wrecking education and public safety was nothing short of a miracle. We were able to spare those agencies from devastating deep cuts but it was not without considerable pain and angst. We have a rainy day fund, thank goodness. We are able to dip into that savings account and a new dynamic that this generation has never seen before called “stimulus funds”. Those things, in addition to a really scary little catch phrase called “revenue enhancements” were all parlayed into this year’s budget process. Now, revenue enhancements sound pretty good if you say it real fast. Unfortunately, the reality is that revenue enhancements are camouflage and a smoke-screen for fee increases and moratoriums on things like tax credits to wind energy. The money has to come from somewhere for Oklahoma to balance its budget and not lay waste to things like education and other things that Oklahomans hold in high regard. Somebody has to pay that bill and in this new environment of tea parties and things like that, a tax increase is out of the question.
The wind energy situation to me was probably a terrible place to attack but none of the guys initially at the table in budget negotiations lived in rural areas where wind energy is just now taking off. It is worrisome to me that we balanced our budget on the backs of things like wind energy. Environmental types have been screaming for years that we have to come up with a cleaner energy source to provide power and it my mind, we have it now but because of our state’s budget hole we had to exact a pound of flesh from that vital new industry. Of course, those wind farms are not in Oklahoma City or Tulsa. They are in wide open spaces where they provide jobs and lease payments to land owners. Many rural legislators banded together to lessen the blow to rural Oklahoma and in a last minute Hail Mary pass, we allowed those wind energy companies to bank those tax credits rather than just to take them away from them.
There have been abuses of tax credits and some have occurred right here in southwest Oklahoma. There have also been good tax credits that have done exactly what they are supposed to do which is to stimulate business growth. Again, we had to come up with revenue enhancements and that was one that we used.
I would say that every legislators’ prayer in Oklahoma is for natural gas prices to come up because, as I have said in many articles before, that is the number one driver in Oklahoma. There is a big push by T. Boone Pickens and Company to increase the use in natural gas vehicles. That seems like a good idea to me. The fix will not be immediate, but for Oklahoma’s long-term health it makes a ton of sense. Unfortunately, we had to balance the budget right now.
There was also a “hold your nose” vote that we had to make that was very important to healthcare. That was a bill that would tax health insurance companies to make sure we did not lose federal dollars in our health care system. What will happen is that if you have a one hundred dollar claim, there will be a dollar tax assessed that the insurance companies will have to pay. Insurance lobbyists at the Capitol were going berserk, and understandably, that “revenue enhancement” was voted on. Make no mistake, the insurance companies may write the check but it is the insurance consumer who will pay for it.
So, we filed the constitution and we did our best to balance what was an ugly budget with an even uglier slight-of-hand move. Balance we did and my hope is that when the dust settles, we did not make any grave mistakes. Hopefully we got our job done and avoided special session which would just increase the pressure on the state coffers. At the end of the day, we did the best with what we had which was 1.3 billion less than what we had last year. Many predicted the end of the world and while I might disagree, I will predict a leaner state government and hopefully a better future. There is still a lot of waste out there and we will continue to work to make this machine we call Oklahoma run more efficiently. In the meantime, we cannot write a hot check and as best we can tell, we didn’t. Only time will tell if we did it right.

If you would like to contact me while I am at the Capitol, please do not hesitate to call 1-800-522-8502 or send an e-mail to donarmes@okhouse.gov

And here’s a little something to think about as you go down the road:

“Don’t tell me where your priorities are. Show me where you spend your money and I’ll tell you what they are.” –James W. Frick