That should tell you something right away.
It appears that OK is not OK. Because of something it shares with adjacent Kansas -- deep tax cuts.
Deep tax cuts cause problems, as they are doing in Oklahoma.
What's the matter with Oklahoma?
Some pithy excerpts:
"The roots of the fiasco are not hard to determine. As in Oklahoma’s northern neighbour, Kansas, deep tax cuts have wrecked the state’s finances.
Mary Fallin, the Republican governor, came to office pledging to eliminate the income tax altogether. Since 2008 general state funds for K-12 education in Oklahoma have been slashed by 28.2%—the biggest cut in the country. Property taxes, which might have made up the difference, are constitutionally limited.
No fact embarrasses Oklahomans more, or repels prospective businesses more, than the number of cash-strapped [school] districts that have gone to four-day weeks.
A recently hired special-education teacher worries that she will not be able to afford a flat for herself and her two children without a housing voucher and food stamps, says Julie Phillips, a speech pathologist with Tulsa Public Schools. After a school drive to raise food for poor families unexpectedly had some left over, needy teachers divided the remaining bags of apples and potatoes among themselves."
Republicans. What did you expect, miracles?
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