
Oklahoma Makes the Poor Poorer - lmcnish14
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/29/opinion/sunday/oklahoma-makes-the-poor-poorer.html
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pavlov
Sadly it's the same story all around the Western world. European governments
also pamper to big business by effectively lowering their tax rates in the
name of "global competitiveness", at the same time cutting programs and
services that help the poorest make ends meet and give them hope for a better
life for their children -- and everywhere, the rhetoric is a variation of "we
must cut, we can't afford it anymore, there's no alternative."

In absolute numbers, Western countries are richer than they ever were and
their corporations pay more dividends than ever. Tax cuts for these
established companies do nothing to help startups and economic innovation.
It's the other way around: a welfare state can be a safety net that makes
individuals more free to innovate in a free market because the risk of
devastating failure is eliminated.

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gaius
_European governments also pamper to big business by effectively lowering
their tax rates in the name of "global competitiveness", at the same time
cutting programs and services that help the poorest make ends meet_

Hopefully, in just a few weeks time, we can redress the balance.

~~~
pavlov
What are you referring to -- the Brexit vote? That won't change anything
either way. Or something else?

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masklinn
> What are you referring to -- the Brexit vote? That won't change anything
> either way.

Quite the opposite really, the UK (and more specifically england) is leading
the neoliberal charge in Europe. If anything, brexit would increase its
velocity not change its direction.

~~~
gaius
Germany's actions in Greece are beyond the wildest dreams of the most fervent
Anglo neoliberals.

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Houshalter
The language of this article is ridiculous. I'm not sure I even disagree with
the author, but the article is full of overly emotionally charged words and
extremely obvious bias.

Cutting the budget of a social program is not necessarily morally wrong or
evil. Especially when the state has a serious deficit and things need to be
cut. Budget cuts and tax increases will always be extremely unpopular, but
sometimes they may be necessary.

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DrScump
<The language of this article is ridiculous. I'm not sure I even disagree with
the author, but the article is full of overly emotionally charged words and
extremely obvious bias.>

Of course it is -- it's the NY Times. The author(s) didn't even have the guts
to put their own names to it.

One example: they criticize the OK Legislature for a modest cut to oil and gas
taxes.

OK's extraction tax for oil and gas is 7%. So, this year's budget takes
somewhat less than during the boom.

In CA (a blue state), there _is no oil or gas extraction tax at all_. Zero.

So, OK producers are paying a little lower tax to the state this year, and
that's _evil_. CA producers pay _nothing_ , and the partisan media (and party
insiders) totally ignore that.

Has the NYT (or any other mass media entity) _ever_ brought that up? No; it
would point out their hypocrisy.

Meanwhile, the Sierra Club has protests in downtown San Francisco protesting
oil development in the Dakotas while ignoring the lack of taxation, and
groundwater poisoning, right here in CA.

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blisterpeanuts
The problem in Oklahoma is that the energy industry is doing poorly, thanks to
very low oil and gas prices. Energy is one of the main industries in the
state, and a plunge in profits has led directly to the state government's $1.3
billion deficit in the current fiscal year. They have no choice but to cut
budgets, which include not just the public schools but also the prisons,
health, and other departments. It's a terrible situation, but budgets need to
be balanced.

If I would fault the legislature for anything, it's that they never take the
surpluses during energy boom years and bank them for a rainy day. Energy is
cyclical; we're currently in a downturn, and in a couple or five years it'll
be booming again, almost guaranteed. In the good times, you have to save some
of the seed corn and not eat it.

Governor Bellmon in 1987-1991 instituted higher education budgets, term
limits, and other reforms, and tried to persuade the Legislature to save
surpluses rather than spend them, to little avail. This is democracy. The
people want their pork barrel projects in their towns and counties, and damn
the budget. I believe the current governor has also made an effort to take a
long term stance on budgets but she does have to deal with the legislature.

Just a personal nitpick, as someone who grew up there and still has family
there: the fellow who wrote the NY Times article clearly doesn't know a whole
heck of a lot about Oklahoma but merely cherry-picked this one budget item to
paint Oklahomans in general as being unsupportive of education. Well, to some
extent it's true and the US News rankings put OK at #30 by certain criteria
this past year, not great though not the worst either. But I can testify that
Oklahomans do take a lot of pride in their schools (even if sometimes it only
seems to manifest itself in support for the football teams). When people put
down Oklahoma, the image that always comes back to me is the monster tornado
that ripped the roof off that school in Moore in 2013, and some of the
teachers literally threw themselves on top of their students to protect them
with their bodies. Sure, I'd give these folks a raise; I hope they got one
after that storm.

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force_reboot
I like EITC, but I find the focus on _change_ in the tax system instead of
absolutes to be very short sighted. Where are all the articles complaining
that EITC needs to be even higher? Because it strikes me as unlikely that
every state already has set the EITC at the perfect level, and so only changes
are worth commenting on.

Of course it's very hard to say from first principles what the tax system
should be, but any attempt to do so is going to be worthwhile. The alternative
is the implicit position that every single change to the tax system should
make it more progressive, (and not make any single person below a certain
income worse off).

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ommunist
At the same time London makes richer the rich.

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Aelinsaar
Of course, in the end, it's the poor Oklahoman's who keep supporting people
and policies that make them poor.

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mevile
Or by not voting at all. Vote people. It matters.

~~~
malka
If you could change anything by voting,you would not be allowed to.

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MichaelBurge
Is the EITC even constitutional in the case where somebody receives more money
back than they pay in taxes? The federal government has the power to lay
taxes, and can reduce those taxes to $0, but a negative tax isn't a tax.

I can see it if individual states opted into a dedicated income redistribution
tax, where the federal government would pool money from any states opting in
and redistribute it back to people using the tax mechanisms they already have
in place.

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HarryHirsch
The originalist interpretation, so favoured by a certain faction on the
political spectrum, would argue that the Taxation Clause concerns itself with
laying taxes - indeed, as you say, a negative tax isn't a tax. Consequently,
the EITC is constitutional, the constitution does not prohibit it. It doesn't
even discuss it.

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MichaelBurge
The Constitution doesn't mention painting your fence white, but it would still
be unconstitutional for specifically the federal government to pass a law
banning white fences. That power is usually left to the local city.

The state, county, or city could pass an EITC program, of course.

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Johnny555
I would think that a "No white fences" law would be unconstitutional no matter
what division of government passes it (whether federal, state, or local).
Unless there was some pressing public safety need (i.e. "White fences are a
breeding ground for the white-fence-virus") I don't think any such law would
stand up to a constitutional challenge under the same freedom of expression
challenges that protect art from government censorship.

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MichaelBurge
I would think so too, but I hear some really bad stories about trying to get
anything developed in San Francisco, and zoning law in general seems much more
developed than is stictly necessary to ensure safety.

Replace 'white fences' with 'zoning law', I guess.

