Post by TOBC on Mar 22, 2016 10:44:42 GMT -6
the powers that be around here asked me if i would drive the AP government kids to the capitol yesterday in order to meet with some legislators, the governor, and the state supe. only one who didn't show was the governor (go figure right?), but they sent a liaison from her office instead. apparently this had been scheduled for a couple of months and she unexpectedly had to "leave town". probably went to play golf with one of her donors.
anywho...........we met with the chairman of the appropriations committee. can't remember his first name, but his last name is sears and he's from bartlesville. old fart who blew so much smoke up our arses that its still coming out of my ears today. he was asked tough questions by our kids and he basically toed the republican line of "well, first off the energy industry took a major nosedive, we budgeted for $50 per barrel oil and we ended up getting $25 per barrel oil. that's why we are having to "give certain agencies and programs haircuts". he said he understood why everyone was upset, but that was the major crux of the why we are having a budget failures.
he was asked why was education being cut when oil was $100 per barrel. his response was "well at that time, healthcare costs were starting to rise due to obamacare and we had to makes cuts to certain areas in order to help pay for those that depended on medicare and medicaid. no mention of the fact that our governor rejected any federal money at the time in order to help subsidize those costs because she basically wanted stoop to obama's level and thumb her nose at him just because. he said he believes that education should be fully funded, and that teachers deserve a raise, but they were "working" on trying to figure out how to do it. in other words, he and the other republicans down there could give 2 sh*ts about public education funding and were more worried about lining their own pockets.
next guy up was a guy named cox. can't remember his first name either, but he represents the grove area. this guy is a doctor, a democrat, and was a big proponent of health care reform. talked about his desire to have education funded because when you have quality teachers in the classroom, and the better educated your populace is, the stats prove that addiction to drugs, teen pregnancy, and other things will go down, which will then in turn make health costs go down. he went on about that and told us why.
next person was fallin's liaison. poor guy came totally unprepared because this got dropped on him at the last minute. only had 2 question asked of him and both were about healthcare and he didn't have a clue how to answer the questions because he's only worked in the governor's office for 2 months. so he was shown the door rather quickly.
next was hofmeister. boys...........she doesn't have any more of a clue than the idiot before her. every time she was asked a question, she said she would have to have so-and-so there in order to accurately answer that question. so she don't know what she's doing. she went on about how excited she was to have the senate makes amendments to the standards legislation that was going to be voted on soon, and her agenda for public education. she went on about how she wants "EVERY" student to be college ready by the time they graduate high school in order to go on to college to earn a degree. one kid asked her about trade schools and vo-tech, and she said "well, those are also great option, but we want to try and make sure everyone is ready for a 4 year university if that is the path they choose". basically calling plumbers, mechanics, auto body repairmen, etc second rate education careers. pissed a few of our kids off who are wanting to do that.
last guy is a guy that really got my attention. his name was scott inman from del city. he is what some would consider to be a blue-dog democrat and is the house minority leader. a democrat that is pro-life and goes by his own convictions. what he had to say was very enlightening. (hoping he runs for governor in '18, but he told us dan boren is thinking about running and he won't run against boren).
anywho.........he told us that there are 4 sections of government that have to be funded. education, public safety, transportation, and health care. those are must funded programs. when we have a budget crisis, we still have to fund those.
he said the reason we are having a budget crisis right now, is because the governor and the majority are making awful decision with regards to saving money and taxing the energy sector. hands is ghey. he told us about north dakota and the oil boom that they had. said that when they were booming oil........they were taxing it at 11%(compared to texas who taxes theirs at 7% and oklahoma was taxing ours at a mere 1%). while north dakota was booming in oil, they were getting so much money to fund everything that that they were able to put over $3 Billion in their rainy day fund (compared to the paltry $348 million that oklahoma did). north dakota planned ahead that when oil booms, it will most assuredly nosedive at some point in the future. which is something the governor and republicans did not do. now that oil bottomed out, north dakota has more than enough money from their rainy day fund to fund everything and not have to cut until oil comes back around again.
he also said that many energy companies are paying ZERO income taxes. most of them are getting tax credits. he named chesapeake in particular. they didn't pay any state income tax on the oil and gas they recovered. they in fact were being paid by the government over a million dollars per quarter because of all the tax credits they were receiving. so not only were they basically getting the oil and gas for free, they were being paid by the state to get it!
i know it's TLTR, so bite me. good info.
anywho...........we met with the chairman of the appropriations committee. can't remember his first name, but his last name is sears and he's from bartlesville. old fart who blew so much smoke up our arses that its still coming out of my ears today. he was asked tough questions by our kids and he basically toed the republican line of "well, first off the energy industry took a major nosedive, we budgeted for $50 per barrel oil and we ended up getting $25 per barrel oil. that's why we are having to "give certain agencies and programs haircuts". he said he understood why everyone was upset, but that was the major crux of the why we are having a budget failures.
he was asked why was education being cut when oil was $100 per barrel. his response was "well at that time, healthcare costs were starting to rise due to obamacare and we had to makes cuts to certain areas in order to help pay for those that depended on medicare and medicaid. no mention of the fact that our governor rejected any federal money at the time in order to help subsidize those costs because she basically wanted stoop to obama's level and thumb her nose at him just because. he said he believes that education should be fully funded, and that teachers deserve a raise, but they were "working" on trying to figure out how to do it. in other words, he and the other republicans down there could give 2 sh*ts about public education funding and were more worried about lining their own pockets.
next guy up was a guy named cox. can't remember his first name either, but he represents the grove area. this guy is a doctor, a democrat, and was a big proponent of health care reform. talked about his desire to have education funded because when you have quality teachers in the classroom, and the better educated your populace is, the stats prove that addiction to drugs, teen pregnancy, and other things will go down, which will then in turn make health costs go down. he went on about that and told us why.
next person was fallin's liaison. poor guy came totally unprepared because this got dropped on him at the last minute. only had 2 question asked of him and both were about healthcare and he didn't have a clue how to answer the questions because he's only worked in the governor's office for 2 months. so he was shown the door rather quickly.
next was hofmeister. boys...........she doesn't have any more of a clue than the idiot before her. every time she was asked a question, she said she would have to have so-and-so there in order to accurately answer that question. so she don't know what she's doing. she went on about how excited she was to have the senate makes amendments to the standards legislation that was going to be voted on soon, and her agenda for public education. she went on about how she wants "EVERY" student to be college ready by the time they graduate high school in order to go on to college to earn a degree. one kid asked her about trade schools and vo-tech, and she said "well, those are also great option, but we want to try and make sure everyone is ready for a 4 year university if that is the path they choose". basically calling plumbers, mechanics, auto body repairmen, etc second rate education careers. pissed a few of our kids off who are wanting to do that.
last guy is a guy that really got my attention. his name was scott inman from del city. he is what some would consider to be a blue-dog democrat and is the house minority leader. a democrat that is pro-life and goes by his own convictions. what he had to say was very enlightening. (hoping he runs for governor in '18, but he told us dan boren is thinking about running and he won't run against boren).
anywho.........he told us that there are 4 sections of government that have to be funded. education, public safety, transportation, and health care. those are must funded programs. when we have a budget crisis, we still have to fund those.
he said the reason we are having a budget crisis right now, is because the governor and the majority are making awful decision with regards to saving money and taxing the energy sector. hands is ghey. he told us about north dakota and the oil boom that they had. said that when they were booming oil........they were taxing it at 11%(compared to texas who taxes theirs at 7% and oklahoma was taxing ours at a mere 1%). while north dakota was booming in oil, they were getting so much money to fund everything that that they were able to put over $3 Billion in their rainy day fund (compared to the paltry $348 million that oklahoma did). north dakota planned ahead that when oil booms, it will most assuredly nosedive at some point in the future. which is something the governor and republicans did not do. now that oil bottomed out, north dakota has more than enough money from their rainy day fund to fund everything and not have to cut until oil comes back around again.
he also said that many energy companies are paying ZERO income taxes. most of them are getting tax credits. he named chesapeake in particular. they didn't pay any state income tax on the oil and gas they recovered. they in fact were being paid by the government over a million dollars per quarter because of all the tax credits they were receiving. so not only were they basically getting the oil and gas for free, they were being paid by the state to get it!
i know it's TLTR, so bite me. good info.