Mary Fallin and her band of Oklahoma lawmakers have done a bunch of stupid, harmful things to the state in recent years. For example, in the early part of this decade, while Oklahoma was facing another budget crisis, lawmakers passed OCPA-crafted, Oil Overlord-approved income tax reduction legislation. The law would gradually lower the state income tax rate in yearly increments if certain thresholds were met, with the ultimate goal of eliminating the state income tax altogether by the 2020s.
Obviously, the plan failed and backfired. Now, one of the original proponents – State Rep Leslie Osborne – is admitting the whole thing was a big mistake... in a South Dakota newspaper.
Via the Rapid City Journal:
In 2012, I helped author a bill to enact triggered income tax cuts - which are future tax cuts enacted when state revenues meet certain thresholds. The bill became law. Five years later, I find myself spending most of my time as a state legislator trying to clean up what I had a large hand in creating.
Since we enacted the tax cuts, Oklahoma hasn’t experienced the promised surge in economic growth. What we have experienced are large, persistent shortfalls that have led to drastic cuts to K-12 education and other vital state services.