But that doesn’t mean its success doesn’t have a recent growing downside or that Oklahomans should ignore it.
Kurt Hochenauer
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Precarious percentages
The Congressional Budget Office numbers he mentioned (income of top 1 percent increased by 275 percent) represents the period from 1979 to 2007, a period of time before the current recession started. This is not “the past three decades,” but, in fact, are the three decades between 1979 and 2007. —Bill Burton Oklahoma City Oklahoma […]
Posted inNews
Precarious percentages
The Congressional Budget Office numbers he mentioned (income of top 1 percent increased by 275 percent) represents the period from 1979 to 2007, a period of time before the current recession started. This is not “the past three decades,” but, in fact, are the three decades between 1979 and 2007. —Bill Burton Oklahoma City Oklahoma […]
Posted inNews
The 99 percent
Occupy OKC and the entire Occupy Wall Street movement have started a long-overdue discussion about the inequity of growing wealth disparity and economic injustice, with some OWS supporters even using the label “oligarchy” to describe the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans. It’s this type of language that could eventually stick and raise awareness. Along the […]
Posted inNews
The 99 percent
Occupy OKC and the entire Occupy Wall Street movement have started a long-overdue discussion about the inequity of growing wealth disparity and economic injustice, with some OWS supporters even using the label “oligarchy” to describe the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans. It’s this type of language that could eventually stick and raise awareness. Along the […]
Posted inNews
Counterpoint: Bad tax model
But is eliminating the income tax here really the panacea some state leaders think it is, and can Oklahoma really emulate Texas, which is often cited as a tax model? No. On the surface, the proposal seems tempting. Most people don’t like paycheck taxes, state or otherwise, even though they enjoy and often take for […]
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Food stamps and munchies
It’s true that many people in society use alcohol and overeating to help medicate themselves. Why not add drugs to the list? The billions of dollars that formerly went toward drug enforcement could be used to help fund the food stamp program. Sitting around all day smoking weed can leave one pretty hungry. A word […]
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Feeling the heat
The hot, dry weather, with temperatures often reaching triple digits, brought a severe drought to Oklahoma, causing an estimated $2 billion in farming losses, according to Oklahoma Agricultural Commissioner Jim Reese. The weather helped spark wildfires, here in Oklahoma City and elsewhere in the state, which have destroyed and damaged homes, other buildings and vehicles, […]
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Elitism for dummies
That’s what state Rep. Tom Newell, a Seminole Republican, apparently thinks, according to a recent media report, and he wants to “rein” it in through more intense legislative oversight. Newell’s comments were prompted by news that many Oklahoma universities and colleges were actually spending more this fiscal year than last year, despite a recent state […]
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War on logic
All rational people should agree that the war on drugs declared by former President Richard Nixon 40 years ago has been an epic failure that needlessly has filled our prisons with nonviolent inmates and cost taxpayers enormously. The numbers are staggering: Media reports show the United States spent $15.5 billion in 2010 on drug control […]