“Play to your strengths.”

“I haven’t got any,” said Harry, before he could stop himself.

“Excuse me,” growled Moody, “you’ve got strengths if I say you’ve got them.”

Over the last few years, there have been a lot of Oklahoman’s down on their home state. As your new Lt. Governor, I’m ready to move in a more positive direction. That starts with looking at our current strengths. Tourism is not just one of those strengths, it’s an economic force in Oklahoma. 

Economic development professionals shouldn’t speak of tourism as a lesser goal than other traded businesses. Too many towns are focused on luring that “big score” company that they believe will solve all their problems. Those wins are great, but any business that attracts money from outside the region will improve prosperity within the region, and that includes tourism dollars. Tourism, it has been said, is the front door to economic development. Tourism advertising and visits create a “halo effect” that has a positive impact on our overall image and creates economic development opportunities. Bottom-line: When we can get people to Oklahoma, they’re impressed. And the good news is, people are coming here.

As recently reported, visitors pumped $9 billion into the state economy over the past year. That’s a 4.4-percent increase over the year prior. Even with a shrinking Tourism Department budget, state tax collections from tourism have jumped by an impressive 20 percent since 2010. That translates to more than 100,000 jobs, with a payroll of $2.3 billion.

Tourism is already the third largest industry in the state, but I believe we’re just scratching the surface. We have a valuable opportunity to talk about our amazing 200 lakes, wildlife, rich tribal heritage, small town charm, and more miles of the most famous road in America in Route 66. We can – and must – do better.

Governor Stitt and I are well aware of the big issues facing Oklahoma from education to healthcare to infrastructure. Promoting our great tourism industry and developing a uniform brand for our state plays a role in that bigger picture.

So Oklahoma, don’t tell me you don’t have any strengths. You’ve got strengths if I say you’ve got them…and you’ve got one in tourism.

Lt. Governor Matt Pinnell was recently named Oklahoma Secretary of Tourism and Branding.

RETIREMENT from the U.S. Senate did nothing to temper Tom Coburn’s interest in the affairs of Washington or his concerns about the future of this country. They’re as evident as ever today.

Coburn, who turned 70 in March, wrote a book last year called “Smashing the DC Monopoly” about the need for an Article V convention of the states, and has traveled the country promoting that idea. He touched on it again last week in an interview with Rick Santelli on CNBC in a discussion about federal spending concerns.

“The only ultimate strategy is to have a constitutional amendment that requires fiscal discipline from Washington, which means you’re going to use generally accepted accounting principles, which they never use,” Coburn said.

“And No. 2, give them a period of time where they have to balance the budget, then you have a supermajority of the states say, ‘Yeah, you can spend more money than that.’ That’s the only way we’ll ever control it. We have to have a structural change in how we spend money in Washington.”

Read the complete story on NewsOK.com

Recently, I was asked to appear at the University of Oklahoma-Tulsa to discuss the twin subjects of “How to Restore Civility in Politics” and “What Are Oklahoma’s Greatest Challenges?” The audience was an impressive group of Tulsa civic and business leaders numbering some 200 people.

Civility? Easy. Listen before you talk. Say “Yes, sir” and “Yes, ma’am.” Speak before you shout. Don’t be a know-it-all. Don’t touch your neighbor. The usual stuff. Third grade.
Oklahoma’s greatest challenges? More difficult. Modernize the infrastructure. Don’t tax work. Don’t put everyone in jail. Make it easier to start a business.

Then, it got sticky. But I kept talking. We don’t teach hard enough courses in school. Look at our state’s latest National Assessment of Educational Progress test scores. From 2015 through 2017, we hit the guardrails. Our fourth graders rank below the national average in reading and math. Our eighth graders crashed as well in reading and math.

Read the complete story on tulsaworld.com

After a decade of teacher salary stagnation, Oklahoma lawmakers passed legislation last session giving teachers a deserved raise. Although we’ve made great strides and now rank second in the region in teacher pay, communities are still frustrated. They lack control at the local level to decide how their tax dollars are spent and they need more options and flexibility to do what makes sense for their districts.

This November, voters will have the opportunity to further strengthen our education system and allow local communities more control. If passed, State Question 801 would give local school districts greater flexibility to use existing property tax revenue for operational needs and expenses, including teacher pay and textbooks. Currently, a portion of local funds is confined to a separate building fund, which restricts usage to a narrow list of expenses. This is problematic for school districts with adequate facilities that would prefer to spend their local dollars in classrooms.

A measure intended to bring flexibility back to school funding, SQ 801 is not meant to be a cure-all. Neither is SQ 801 a mandate – if a district wants to keep some of its local dollars separated in its building fund, it will be able to continue to do so. But, we believe some Oklahoma districts and local communities would benefit from less government regulation and more local control, giving them the flexibility to spend their local dollars in the best way to help students, potentially including additional pay for teachers and more money in the classroom.

Read the complete story on the journalrecord.com

THIS year, at the Oklahoma Education Association’s urging, most Republican legislators approved roughly $600 million in tax increases and provided an average $6,100 raise per teacher while boosting the school appropriation almost 20 percent. If Republicans thought those actions, which broke campaign promises for many, would win OEA support, they’re learning otherwise now.

The OEA has released a list of teacher-affiliated candidate to bolster support for those individuals.

Reps. Greg Babinec, R-Cushing, and Scooter Park, R-Devol, both voted for tax increases and increased school funding. Both were ousted in primaries last week by OEA-touted opponents. Apparently, toeing the OEA line isn’t enough to avoid being considered “anti-education.”

Rep. Mark McBride, R-Moore, voted for tax increases. In April, he attended a town hall on education. In opening remarks at the event, Amanda Ewing, chief lobbyist for the OEA, introduced McBride and another lawmaker as “public education advocates.” Now the OEA is touting the candidacy of a Democrat working to defeat McBride in November.

Read the complete story on NewsOK.com

The repeal of Obamacare didn’t work, and it’s understandable to want to try a different sort of fix for a health insurance system marked by skyrocketing costs. However, state-authorized expansion of short-term insurance plans is most certainly not the right way to do it.

An Executive Order signed by President Donald Trump last October will let states grant greater use of what is known as short-term limited duration insurance (STLDI). While giving power over these types of policy decisions back to the states is to be applauded, state leaders should be very careful before they let more people sign up for longer stints on short-term plans.

Doing so could pull healthy people from the government Health Insurance Marketplace – where those so-called Obamacare plans are sold – which will, in turn, drive up premiums for those who are left. Once premiums get high enough and constituents get angry enough, the political will might be found to finally repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, but in the meantime, we will all pay a steep price.

We will pay in higher health insurance premiums. States themselves will pay in higher health care costs. The federal government will pay in higher subsidies. And then we will pay (again) in higher taxes to cover growing government expenses.

Read the complete story on townhall.com

WHENEVER government corruption and mismanagement occur, it’s asked why such abuses have been tolerated. Yet those outcomes may be a direct result of government structure, as a new report makes clear.

“Baked-In Corruption: The Need to Reform Boards and Commissions,” by the conservative 1889 Institute, points out the institutional structure of Oklahoma state boards and commissions often gives special interests outsized representation, fueling conflicts of interest, self-dealing, and groupthink.

“We’ve essentially given licensing boards, health boards, and educational boards a license to self-deal,” said the study’s author, Byron Schlomach, economist and director of the Oklahoma City-based institute.

The report notes “every licensing agency is headed by a board comprised mostly of individuals licensed to practice the profession they regulate. Virtually every decision they make impacts their own professional practice directly or indirectly and is almost bound to have financial implications for each of the board members.”

Read the complete story on NewsOK.com

When the acting head of the Federal Trade Commission proclaimed last year, “I challenge anyone to explain why the state has a legitimate interest in protecting the public from rogue interior designers carpet-bombing living rooms with ugly throw pillows,” it was clear that occupational licensing reform had gone mainstream. From Mississippi to Arizona to Wisconsin, states have enacted reforms that will make it easier for their workers to climb the ladder of opportunity.

In Oklahoma, we went big. The governor put together a task force to examine occupational licenses. It came up with recommendations that won’t just remove barriers for Oklahomans, but will provide a blueprint for other states, counties and towns across the country to follow so more American workers can find jobs and pursue their dreams.

There was a time when occupational licenses applied only to doctors, lawyers and other high-income occupations whose malpractice could jeopardize consumers’ health, well-being or safety. That’s no longer the case. Today, a license is required for roughly 25 percent of the workforce, up from just 5 percent in the 1950s.

This presents a significant impediment to employment for people in disadvantaged communities. A 2017 study by the Institute for Justice of 102 low- and middle-income occupations nationwide found that to obtain a license in Oklahoma (we license everything from travel guides to shampooers) an aspiring worker must pay an average of $234 in fees and complete nearly 400 days of education and experience.

Public safety is often the primary justification, but research shows licensing doesn’t improve quality or public health and safety. Real-world experience also belies the claim. Most of the 102 licensed occupations in the IJ study are safely practiced unlicensed in other states.

What’s more, the licensing requirements for jobs that do affect public health are often less strenuous. Nationwide, the average emergency medical technician, who can be the difference between life and death, must complete just 34 days of training, while cosmetologists on average need 386 days of experience.

The real purpose of many licensing boards is to insulate industry players from competition. Boards often include individuals who work in the profession they regulate and have every incentive to engage in behavior that limits competition.

This is where the task force’s recommendations enter the picture. They provide a blueprint that policymakers nationwide can use to examine current and future licenses.

Instead of broad ideas of what licensing should look like, the blueprint contains a series of specific questions to evaluate individual licenses. For example, “Is there a compelling public interest that needs to be protected?” If the answer is no, then scrap the license. If yes, then determine whether a license is the least restrictive way to protect that interest. After that, the questions focus on ensuring that active market participants do not control the board and consumer interests are protected.

The goal must be to remove unreasonable barriers to employment so that more Americans can realize their dreams and experience the dignity of work.

Tidwell is Oklahoma state director of Americans for Prosperity.

Read the complete story on NewsOK.com

The Empire State should keep its wrong-headed, draconian, expensive emissions cuts to itself. Not content with fouling up its own energy policy, New York — with some of the country’s highest electricity rates — wants to foul up Arkansas’s, Louisiana’s, and Oklahoma’s, too.

New York state’s government-employee pension fund, run by Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, owns a $100 million stake in American Electric Power (AEP), which provides electricity in the three other states mentioned above, our states. What the federal government wisely chooses not to do, activist shareholders like DiNapoli are trying to do instead.

DiNapoli drafted a shareholder resolution that would have compelled AEP to cut greenhouse-gas emissions in line with “reduction needs defined by the Paris Climate Agreement,” which President Trump has vowed to leave. But before this resolution was even brought to a vote, AEP caved to DiNapoli’s threat. So our electricity policy is now being set in deep-blue Albany.

Meeting DiNapoli’s demands won’t be easy. AEP has pledged to slash its greenhouse-gas emissions to 60 percent below 2000 levels by 2030 and 80 percent below the same levels by 2050. Emissions cuts of this magnitude are so steep that the parties to the Paris Agreement wouldn’t even agree to anything like them.

Read the complete story on NationalReview.com

When I was governor in 2001, the wind industry made many promises. It promised us jobs but very few have been produced. It promised to manufacture here, but manufacturing is done out of state. It promised money for schools, but education as a whole is suffering and the industry refuses to help.

The wind industry’s claim that we have a moral obligation to honor our promises to them is nonsense when you consider it hasn’t honored one of its original promises to Oklahoma. The tax credit was designed to give a jump-start to a wind industry in its infancy in Oklahoma. It was sold as a low-cost way to broaden our already robust energy and economic development program. What was promised to cost the state less than $2 million annually when I was in office, has soared to estimates of $930 million over the next 10 years.

Industrial wind has been presented many opportunities to help find solutions to fix Oklahoma’s budget gap. When asked to participate in the Step Up plan and HB 1010XX to support education, these multibillion-dollar companies based outside of Oklahoma threatened to sue and file bankruptcy.

Private equity firms, international companies and Wall Street banks fund these wind farm operations and they have no vested interest in the future of Oklahoma, other than to harvest our natural resources and tax incentives. It’s time to stop taking money away from education, roads and services Oklahomans need, to write checks to this wealthy industry. For example, did you know that wind subsidies for one turbine exceed the starting salary of an Oklahoma teacher, even with the pay raise?

Read the complete story on NewsOK.com

Oklahoma’s teachers have just completed the first week of a statewide “walkout,” with no resolution in sight. (It’s a “walkout,” not a “strike,” as public-employee strikes are illegal in Oklahoma.)

Ironically, the state’s teachers had won much of what they wanted before the walkout even began. On Friday, March 23, the Oklahoma Education Association (OEA), the state’s largest teachers union, issued an ambitious list of demands: a $10,000 pay raise for teachers; $5,000 raise for school-support personnel; $200 million over three years in additional local-school funding; a 5 percent cost-of-living increase for retirees; and $500 million over three years to “fully staff state agencies” and raise state employee pay by $7,500 a year. In OEA’s estimation, this total package would cost more than $1.4 billion over three years.

In response, on Thursday, March 29 the Oklahoma legislature enacted a new teacher-pay scale that boosted average teacher pay by $6,100 — or 16 percent. This represented a remarkable win for teachers: In 2016, Oklahoma’s average teacher salary of $45,276 ranked 49th nationally, according to the National Education Association (NEA). The raise was funded via new taxes on gas, tobacco, and oil production, along with a new limit on income-tax deductions.

Yet, teachers were not placated — and on Monday, April 2, they started the walkout. The next day, Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin signed a $2.9 billion appropriations bill for education funding in fiscal year 2019 — a 19.7 percent boost in spending over the current fiscal year, which ends June 30. The legislation includes $353.5 million for teacher pay (funding the $6,100 average raise); $52 million for support personnel pay; $50 million for textbooks and general state aid; and $24.7 million for health-care benefits. Fallin signed additional legislation providing a $1,250 annual pay bump for school-support personnel and tiered raises for state employees ranging from $750 to $2,000.

Read the complete story on thehill.com

“What does the Lt Governor do?”

I get asked that often. Along with sitting on a number of boards and commissions, the Lt. Governor serves as the Chairman of the Tourism Commission. Therefore, one of the most important jobs the LG has is to promote the state.

For every dollar we spend on tourism advertising we get seven dollars back. Where else in government do we get a 7-1 return on our investment? In Oklahoma, that means hundreds-of-millions of dollars in revenue on the line. It is serious business, and the Lt. Governor should be daily involved in it. We have to play to our strengths, and tourism is one of those strengths.

As Spring Break comes and goes, and Summer is on the horizon, we must remember that people will spend their tourism dollars elsewhere if we aren’t selling all the great things we have to offer in Oklahoma. Yes, I’m talking about valuable recurring revenue for our state.

I’m all in. So much so that I took my family across our state this past week in an RV (RV sales at an all-time high by the way) to show off some of the amazing places we have to offer. The trip further reinforced to me what an opportunity we have in Oklahoma.

We visited Broken Bow, Chickasaw National Recreation Area, Turner Falls, Roman Nose State Park, Eischen’s Bar, Osage Hills State Park, the Grand Lake area, Pawhuska, and the most lucrative tourism road in the country: Route 66. What was common among all these places? Businesses were being created and the communities were thriving. Tourism is an economic engine.

Will tourism alone fix our education problem? No, but it sure can help.

We currently generate over $650 million in state and local tax revenue off tourism, and it’s the third largest industry in our state. I firmly believe if we get serious about promoting this state we could generate far more revenue.

Oklahoma is an amazing state. The crossroads of America with tourist destinations in every direction. Those destinations are economic development engines, and I look forward to preaching that as your next Lt. Governor.

Matt Pinnell is a Republican candidate for Lt. Governor. He and his wife Lisa own and operate a small business in the Tulsa area. For more about Matt visit www.MattPinnell.com

I am a frustrated Oklahoman. We have suffered two revenue failures. We have done little to reduce the size of government and have done less to reform the bloat that we have. We want to give teachers a raise but we’ve given away the revenue base to the able-bodied on Medicaid, the wind industry and a cash-sucking public school and higher education bureaucracy that argues with straight faces that 500 school districts, scores of colleges and universities and off-campus campuses are spending our money prudently and educating our students well, despite the fact that our math, science and reading scores and graduation rates show us to be high on failure and low on achievement.

What to do?

It should come as an embarrassment to our political leaders but the business community has stepped up to say that enough is enough. They propose an assortment of reforms and taxes to avoid further state embarrassment. They are right to demand a bipartisan agreement. They have brought us to the table. We can no longer clear our throats and look out the window. Step Up Oklahoma should not be a package. It ought to be a process. Democrats want a $5,000 pay raise for teachers. Conservatives want Medicaid cuts, educational savings accounts, merger of career tech and community colleges, dramatic reduction of school districts and a cap on administrative overhead. To avoid shortfalls, the business leaders ask for sin taxes and restoration of a portion of the gross production tax. An increase of the income tax causes pain to working people so why not cover this piece with an end to the wind giveaways? Everything ought to be on the table. Nothing should be off the table. Both parties must give. It is summer 1787. Philadelphia. It is time to fix this place or it will fix us.

Frank Keating, Oklahoma City

Read the complete story on tulsaworld.com

Whether you are a fan of Step Up Oklahoma or think of it as Pay Up Oklahoma, there is no denying the plan is long on taxes and short on reform.

Step Up promoters say it will raise taxes but also reform state and local government to increase efficiency and reduce abuse. But other than an independent state budget office and some additional transparency, the plan does little to improve government.

With their priority on increasing tax revenues, Step Up supporters are saying Oklahoma’s government operations and funding systems are basically sound. Yet they plainly are not. Texas’ roads have long been better than ours, their teachers better paid, and local governments better funded. Yet Texas, until recently, spent less per capita than Oklahoma and still does when cost of living is taken into account. Besides, why is more than 13 percent of Oklahomans’ personal income for state and local government too little?

The fear seems to be that a government short of what it wants to spend presents an economic risk to Oklahoma citizens. But the real risk is continuing to do things the same old way, rather than reforming crony and inefficient policies. The Step Up plan reinforces the old system with its focus on how much government spends, not how it spends it.

Read the complete story on NewsOK.com

As a doctor, I investigated the root cause of problems. Some doctors have fallen into the trap of just treating symptoms — this is the major reason for the overdose epidemic.

In government, the prime way politicians, bureaucrats and some advocates approach government is to throw your hard-earned money at it. The answer to state government’s failures isn’t more money — it’s fiscally responsible governance.

Recurring revenues have been raised more than $700 million the past several years. State reports show the budget gap at less than $200 million. State government operational dysfunction abounds — for example, the scandal of at least $30 million squandered at the state Health Department. Oklahomans are striving to get out of a recession. Working Oklahomans need $800 million in annual tax increases like a hemorrhaging patient needs leeches.

Opportunities are numerous for fiscally responsible governance, so tax increases are unnecessary. Robust Medicaid enrollment audits are saving states billions — Oklahoma can implement this and save more than $80 million in state-share funds annually.

Read the complete story on NewsOK.com

GOV. Mary Fallin made as part of her first special session call a request that legislators look for consolidation and other efficiencies throughout government. In that vein, Fallin recently issued two executive orders aimed at finding savings in education. One ordered officials in higher ed to develop a plan for consolidating administrative functions. The other urges the same for public school districts that don’t spend at least 60 percent of their budgets in the classroom.

Those will be considerable undertakings. Lawmakers interested in potentially saving the state a few dollars, without a ton of heavy lifting, should consider reducing the number of agencies, boards and commissions now on the books.

By our count, there are more than 200 such entities in the latest version of The ABC Book. It includes information on agencies as large as the Department of Human Services and the Department of Transportation, and as small as the Board of Trustees for the College Savings Plan.

Read the complete story on theoklahoman.com

After three decades of dealing with our horribly broken tax code, Congress is on the brink of providing a major victory to businesses of all sizes in Oklahoma with its comprehensive tax reform legislation. Every business owner should thank our very own Senator James Lankford for helping to pass tax reform legislation in the Senate and paving the way for this new pro-growth tax code.

Currently, businesses in Oklahoma have to contend with a great deal of red tape simply to pay their taxes and they are often charged rates that are unfairly too high. Millions of dollars and thousands of hours are wasted every year by business owners wading through our mess of a code. What’s even more frustrating is that the rates charged by the current code make our businesses uncompetitive and limits their ability to go out and hire more employees.

The GOP tax plan will go a long way to fixing this issue. I am encouraged to see that Senator Lankford is in favor of tax reform and I urge him to vote for this once-in-a-generation opportunity to fix the tax code when the House and Senate agree on the final legislation.

— Brenda Jones Barwick, APR, Owner of Jones Public Relations

Many at our capitol talk about fraud, waste and abuse—I agree that those areas have played a role in our current budget situation. But we cannot continue to blame these factors without offering thoughtful and responsible solutions to ease the burden on our state budget.

Modernizing our health care delivery system for Medicaid recipients stands to save an estimated $400 million in state taxpayer dollars over the next decade. In the absence of a thoughtful solution, Medicaid will continue to eat into our state budget.

By modernizing our health care delivery system, we will save taxpayer dollars, and more importantly, Oklahoma’s most vulnerable citizens will receive better care. Coordinating care and providing the right care in the right setting is essential to avoiding costly emergency room visits. Managed care is a patient-centered model that will improve health care delivery and the overall health of Oklahoma’s most vulnerable.

Something else a modernized health care delivery system can bring is budgetary stability. By making payments on a capitated per member basis, the state will know exactly how money needs to be allocated. I cannot overstate the importance of budgetary stability in health care. It is the second-highest appropriated service in our state, only trailing education. With a stable health care delivery system in place, our state legislature will have a predictable funding scenario when it comes time to appropriate health care dollars.

We have the opportunity to address inefficiencies, reduce redundant services and lowers costs, all while improving health care for Oklahomans. This type of proposal must be seriously considered by our state legislature as we continue to examine policies that may have lasting savings in our state budget.

Managed care does not cut corners in service. The healthier the overall program, the more savings are achieved. One example of this is when Oklahomans use the emergency room for conditions that can be efficiently and effectively treated by a primary care physician. Modernized health care delivery holds managed care organizations to high quality standards, improves health care access through stable provider networks and helps remove social barriers to health by linking Oklahomans to critical services like shelter, clothing, food and transportation.

Sitting on our hands is no longer an option when it comes to dealing with the current financial situation in our state. It is negligent to ignore proposals that would consciously reduce costs while providing better services. Modernizing our safety net health care system is the fiscally responsible thing for our legislature to do.

Rep. Glen Mulready, a Republican, represents District 68 in the Oklahoma House of Representatives.

This spring, Terry Cline, Gov. Mary Fallin’s then-secretary of health, berated me for refusing to vote for tax increases. Last week, Cline was forced to resign when apparent fraud and/or mismanagement was uncovered at the Department of Health.

This makes one wonder: If we had passed all the tax increases during the 2017 session, would this corruption have remained hidden? I suspect so. The additional money would have filled accounts emptied by mismanagement.

I suspect we’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg of exposing corruption in state spending, because state agencies haven’t been independently audited in years!

State government insiders are lying to those who serve vulnerable Oklahomans, telling them that tax increases are necessary to preserve services, when there is enough available cash to plug the current $214 million gap without any tax increase. These lies cause needless anxiety to the vulnerable, causing them to pressure legislators for tax increases.

Perhaps now we are seeing the real reason for the increasingly desperate attempts by government insiders to raise your taxes. The insiders need tax increases to cover up the corruption.

Read the complete story on NewsOK.com

I recently walked the floor at the Oklahoma Oil & Gas Expo at the state fairgrounds. More than 150 exhibitors promoted their businesses to the 2,500 attendees from Oklahoma’s oil and natural gas industry. It was eye-opening.

At the Capitol, the energy industry is oftentimes only represented by the gross production tax, which is paid by oil and natural gas producers. It’s one of the few budget line items directly linked to oil and natural gas and it’s also one of the state’s most significant sources of income, trumped only by income tax, sales tax and motor vehicle tax collections.

But the businesses that support oil and natural gas producers — the vast majority of those represented at the expo — don’t pay gross production tax. Their employees do pay income taxes. They do pay sales tax on equipment used in their day-to-day business. And they do pay motor vehicle taxes on the fleet of cars and trucks they use throughout the oil field.

The economic benefit those companies bring to Oklahoma is great and reaches every county in the state.

Read the complete story on NewsOK.com