Oklahoma’s education debate spends a lot of time on a few familiar subjects: education funding vs. tax cuts, vouchers and charters vs. traditional public schools and high-stakes testing vs. letting teachers teach. What’s too often missing from these debates is any consideration of the needs of real students. We’ve lost sight of the reasons kids […]
Gene Perry
Posted inNews
Time for middle-out economics
Yet the 2006 tax cut also increased the standard deduction. This eliminated income taxes for some 45,000 moderateincome families and lowered taxes for Oklahomans at all income levels. At the time, lawmakers wanted to make sure tax reduction was both bottom-up and top-down. By contrast, the current governor and Legislature have pushed tax cuts that […]
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Counterpoint: Don’t pull that trigger
Sen. David Holt, who sponsored such legislation for Oklahoma, said he was partly inspired by Won’t Back Down. But whatever the film’s merits as entertainment, its rosy portrait of parent triggers mask major problems with the idea. Under his proposal, if a school is given a D or an F on the state’s A-F rating […]
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Tax credits worth saving
Based on rhetoric surrounding Oklahoma’s income tax debate, some lawmakers seem to think so. Gov. Mary Fallin and other state leaders are eager to cut the top income tax rate this year. They say we can offset some of the cut by eliminating “special interest” tax credits and deductions. Yet when the details emerge, we […]