More posts from the OK Policy Blog
Posted on | July 29, 2013 | 2 Comments
In the year since I last updated.
- Trickle-Down hasn’t worked. It’s time for Middle-Out economics.
- After talk of reining in tax breaks, Oklahoma added more
- Oklahoma has not implemented real criminal justice reform
- Whatever happened to… ?
- Oklahoma is still waiting for criminal justice reform
- No, Common Core is not a ‘federal takeover’ of schools
- Proposed education budget leaves schools in a hole
- What you need to know about the state budget agreement
- The life and death of justice reinvestment
- Do we need another tax cut?
- Expensive to be poor: Are we saving the state money by pushing fees onto low-income Oklahomans?
- Bills to limit Oklahoma’s debt could make it more expensive
- Running government like a business means taking on debt
- New issue brief examines how the third grade retention law will affect Oklahoma students and schools
- The dangers of cherry-picking facts, part 2
- Governor Fallin’s tax cut would do little to nothing for the average Oklahoman
- The dangers of cherry-picking facts
- A low tax state for who?
- How to make college affordable? Pay It Forward
- The tax shift returns
- A response to The Oklahoman
- Cliff, slope, or hostage crisis?
- Inequality is bad for business
- Marriage won’t end poverty
- Rising inequality in Oklahoma as lower- and middle-class incomes stagnate
- Quick take: On track for another flat budget year
- Opponents of SQ 762 are making false claims
- What the coming federal budget cuts mean for education in Oklahoma
- Who pays state and federal taxes in Oklahoma — in 2 charts
- SQ 762: Is Oklahoma ready to be smart on crime?
- New Census data shows many still left out of Oklahoma’s prosperity
- School consolidation won’t fix the funding gap
- Oklahoma’s per pupil spending has plummeted
- Keeping it honest
- Getting what we pay for
- Energy Efficiency: ‘It’s fruit lying on the ground.’
- Property tax “cuts” create winners and losers
- It matters who guards the henhouse
- How Oklahomans fare under competing plans for the Bush tax cuts
OK Policy posts again
Posted on | June 21, 2012 | Comments Off on OK Policy posts again
It’s been basically forever since I updated this list, but it’s mostly for my own archives. Here are all my posts at the OK Policy Blog since the last update. Not including my daily news briefing In The Know, which you should subscribe to.
- Why total spending has gone up as budgets are cut
- The conservative anti-poverty program
- Politicians make bad fortune-tellers
- Oklahoma’s middle-class children are falling behind
- Why raise taxes on working families?
- The tax expenditure reform dog: Still not barking
- Who’s behind the assault on income tax?
- The terrible thing about triggers
- The “tax cut” bait and switch
- Reforming criminal justice: What the latest bill does and what stands in the way
- Surprise! State without an income tax have higher sales and property taxes
- Economics 102
- Fallin off a cliff
- The economy bowl
- How Oklahoma is falling behind
- The myth about Oklahoma’s tax system that we keep repeating
- State of the State analysis: Gov. Fallin is playing catch-up
- What the coming federal budget cuts could mean for Oklahoma
- Why the Laffer proposal is like an ice cream diet
- Who are the real losers in the tax shift plan? It’s not “special interests”
- Task force proposal would raise taxes on most Oklahomans, especially harm seniors and families with children
- Beyond tuition: Better measures for the cost and value of higher education
- Task force proposes tax hike on poor and middle class to benefit the wealthiest
- Blogging about blogs
- Oklahoma ranked sixth in the nation for tax break safeguards, but serious gaps remain
- What’s the best way to boost the economy? Hint — it’s not tax cuts
- Report tracks how large corporations avoid state taxes
- Beware the tax shift
- When you want something done, do it
- Keeping tabs on tax breaks
- Cutting the income tax is the wrong priority for Oklahoma
- Making more bricks with less straw: Agency heads share thoughts on operating in hard times
More OK Policy posts, plus a poem page
Posted on | October 16, 2011 | Comments Off on More OK Policy posts, plus a poem page
It’s been a good while since I updated this site, but the blogging goes on at okpolicy.org. Below are my posts since the last update.
I also added a poetry page page to archive some stuff I’ve written over the past decade. Find it under “Other Writing” in the sidebar or click here.
- Good times don’t last forever
- Why a federal Balanced Budget Amendment will never happen, and why that’s a good thing
- Three reforms to modernize Oklahoma’s income tax
- Will Oklahoma continue to lead the way in early childhood education?
- Why Oklahoma needs an income tax
- New report shows tax flight is a myth
- FAA shutdown proves business taxes aren’t always passed on to consumers
- How the Rainy Day formula requires us to make mistakes
- An interview with Dr. Thomas Benediktson about TU’s new focus on urban education
- Visualizing where the money goes
- An interview with Amina Benalioulhaj, director of “Women Behind Bars” documentary
- What’s been done and what still needs doing on corrections reform
My posts for OK Policy, continued
Posted on | June 21, 2011 | Comments Off on My posts for OK Policy, continued
- Can we stop the runaway train of tax expenditures?
- Eliminating tax breaks: The dog that didn’t bark
- ‘Flip It To Fix It’ report offers an immediate, fair solution to state budget shortfalls
- Get a job: Why restricting employment for ex-felons is counter-productive
- Watchdogs, code monkeys, and budget hawks: The many species of Gov 2.0
- Budget cuts are a choice
- When lawmakers sign a pledge, who are they working for?
For my many followers here (no one)
Posted on | May 2, 2011 | Comments Off on For my many followers here (no one)
All my blogging these days happens at okpolicy.org. Here are my posts so far:
- Sally Kern could be on to something (but it’s not what she thinks)
- How the tax incentives war puts states in a terrible bargaining position
- Bill would raise taxes for 1 million low-income Oklahomans
- New OK Policy report lays out options for protecting Oklahoma public services
- More states push to end the Amazon tax loophole. Will Oklahoma join them?
- When a job is not enough: New measure looks at what’s needed for economic security
- A tale of two closing funds, the Chinese Communist Party, and genetically modified mice
- What’s at stake: the toll of budget cuts
- Politics for architects, or how fewer elections can be good for democracy
- The three part test for tax credits – and the fourth part we should be asking
- Cutting the top income tax rate: Who benefits?
- Unfair, inefficient, and bad for business: Why Oklahoma needs sales tax reform
- OK Policy Roundtable: Should the state of Oklahoma be promoting marriage?
- When “business-friendly” regulations are bad for the rest of us
- Why education reform is not like musical chairs
the SUV in the room
Posted on | October 15, 2010 | Comments Off on the SUV in the room
Steve Lackmeyer deleted my comment on this post. Not sure why. (For a minute I worried that I was becoming a troll, but then I realized that trolls never worry about being trolls, so therefore I’m not.)
Anyway, I might as well post here “What OKC Central Doesn’t Want You To See.” Lackmeyer complains about a Forbes list that ranked OKC as the 9th most dangerous city because they included transportation deaths, which put a “skew to the data.” But why should people killed by cars be out of bounds? They are just as dead, and I would say just as murdered, as someone who fell victim to a mugger.
As illustration, here’s a side project that I have been doing for a little while: http://carskill.tumblr.com/
Yes, it’s morbid. But it has to be, because otherwise we would never notice these deaths. The constant trickle becomes ordinary background noise. You have to see them all at once to realize the scale. If we had an average of 2 people every day dying from violent crime in Oklahoma, it would be a huge deal.
It’s indicative of a very widespread misconception that the negative effects of car culture are somehow a part of nature and therefore don’t count. We say people died in a “car accident,” which is a nice way of holding no one responsible. It’s the same logic as when people argue that mass transit doesn’t work because it is subsidized, even though roads receive many times the amount of taxpayer subsidies every year.
But we are responsible, as individuals and as a society. We make the choice when expanding highways every year instead of investing in mass transit and walkability. We make the choice to condone wreckless driving, often blaming pedestrians for being on the road when an inattentive driver runs them down. We don’t take seriously our responsibility when behind the wheel, and we show it by texting, eating, or talking on the phone instead of paying attention to not kill someone.
That doesn’t describe all drivers, of course, but it describes enough of them that it is a legitimate problem.
Update: Some time after this was posted, my comment reappeared on OKC Central.
Oklahoma creating new felonies and increasing sentences even as corrections budget is slashed
Posted on | May 11, 2010 | Comments Off on Oklahoma creating new felonies and increasing sentences even as corrections budget is slashed
Oklahoma’s prison population has grown 10 percent in the last 10 years. Fifty-three percent of the inmates were convicted of nonviolent crimes. Budget cuts threaten to eliminate 15 percent of the prison work force, and inmates are already sleeping in dining halls and exercise rooms.
What’s Republican Senate Leader Glenn Coffee’s response?
“It’s not a dollars and cents issue with me.”
The problem with Facebook
Posted on | May 7, 2010 | Comments Off on The problem with Facebook
Exhibit A: Facebook was letting friends spy on each others’ chats
Facebook chat is now down as the social network races to close a security hole that let people see their friends’ live chats. The security bug was exploited, ironically enough, by fiddling one’s privacy settings, as this TechCrunch video demonstrates.
Exhibit B: Facebook’s Gone Rogue; It’s Time for an Open Alternative
Facebook has gone rogue, drunk on founder Mark Zuckerberg’s dreams of world domination. It’s time the rest of the web ecosystem recognizes this and works to replace it with something open and distributed.
What I really dislike about Facebook is that you can’t export your own posts to your hard drive or another site. Facebook doesn’t respect our rights to our own content, so we get the worst of both worlds: neither privacy nor ownership. I’m still there because that is where friends are, but if there was a popular open alternative I would jump ship in a second.
Interfaith Dialogue of the Day, part XVIII
Posted on | April 19, 2010 | Comments Off on Interfaith Dialogue of the Day, part XVIII
hate mail from third graders
Posted on | April 15, 2010 | Comments Off on hate mail from third graders
“It’s tough being called a heartless Pluto-hater, particularly by a dismayed eight-year-old.”
the perils of social networking
Posted on | April 15, 2010 | Comments Off on the perils of social networking
Watch what you say on Facebook! Your terrible puns will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
Lawton man arrested for Facebook jokes
According to the affidavit filed by Det. Ken Parsons, Chaston posted the following online threat: “thinking about shooting up an old folks home … could call it youthenasia ….lol someone has to put them out of their misery.” He then added another comment to the post: “…well thought about doing a drive-by at a daycare, but that didn’t sound as cool …. lol”
awesome
Posted on | April 5, 2010 | Comments Off on awesome
Barack Obama Looking at Awesome Things
Call me a whistleblower if you want, but the truth is the truth. President Obama spends most of his time looking at awesome things.
Not to be confused with Obama feigning interest in mundane things.
beautiful
Posted on | April 4, 2010 | Comments Off on beautiful
SolarBeat
Musical Solar System – based on real orbital frequencies
Via Inky Circus.
every bit helps
Posted on | March 30, 2010 | Comments Off on every bit helps
My friend Isaiah McCaslin will be a great Representative for Oklahoma, but he needs your help to get there. If you’re sick of what’s going on with our current legislature, this is how you change it! Please donate whatever you can.
Contribute now to Isaiah McCaslin (OK-HD-44)
Join us! So far, 15 supporters have contributed $1,360.
quote of the day
Posted on | March 29, 2010 | Comments Off on quote of the day
“”if one is trying to harvest a truffle wood discreetly without alerting the locals, it’s generally a mistake to show up walking a pig on a leash”
Unearthing the Sex Secrets of the Périgord Black Truffle – NYTimes.com
The cynosure of every foodie’s dreams is about to yield its most intimate secrets to a team of French and Italian researchers who have decoded its genome.
Zombie Bitches Kickin Peoples Ass
Posted on | March 29, 2010 | Comments Off on Zombie Bitches Kickin Peoples Ass
What makes a good downtown?
Posted on | March 26, 2010 | Comments Off on What makes a good downtown?
Video is full of great advice with real world examples… density, variety, people on display, and NO surface parking lots!
wow
Posted on | March 24, 2010 | 1 Comment
meme’d
Posted on | March 24, 2010 | Comments Off on meme’d
It is time to pass health care reform.
Posted on | March 21, 2010 | Comments Off on It is time to pass health care reform.
“Americans can always be counted on to do the right thing…after they have exhausted all other possibilities.” — Winston Churchill
