VIEW: 18-04: More Wasted Money

VIEW FROM HERE
By Bob McDowell (Born Neil Carson) Number 18-04
MORE WASTED MONEY Week of 2018/01/22
Two or three times in recent months reports have surfaced from State Treasurer
Ken Miller, and carried here, that revenue collections had shown substantial increases
over 2016. These led me to question if there was a real need to have the 'special
sessions' of the Legislature called by Governor Fallin during the Summer. Special
sessions are rather expensive, especially when there is a projected revenue shortfall
from the budget approved last year. We have been told that special sessions run a
normal cost of about $30,000 per day, but not whether there are added costs to that
number, such as travel and per-diem expenses.
Now there has appeared a story in the daily paper of January 6th of another
month, December, where there again was an increase. With increases in all but one
month of 2017. receipts have exceeded those of 2016 by "$667.6 million". The one
month without an increase was not listed, but logic would give the presumption that it
would have been January, before the boom engendered by the inauguration of
PRESDT became a reality. With a previously projected shortfall of $316 million, it
would seem that the problem would have solved itself, and so it would not have been
necessary to even have had any special session let alone two.
It still confuses me how this state government, which has a constitutional
requirement to not operate on a deficit, can continue to spend money, like there was
no limit, and not seriously seek to cut waste wherever it is found to occur. State
Auditor Gary Jones has documented a number of very wasteful situations in the
Oklahoma governmental operations, as he has stated in some of his speeches
attended by me. But neither House, as a group, seems to be interested in taking
action to reduce or eliminate the wasteful, and/or illegal operations and practices,
nor does the Governor.
On top of that there are those who want to, and do, throw large amounts of
money into questionable activities (give away's or 'bribes') in hopes of "bringing
new business here". It would seem obvious to me that rather than such wasteful
practices the brakes should be put on all such wasteful practices and be able to
substantially cut taxes. Another detriment to securing new business activities would
be the multitude of onerous and anti-business regulations that exist, many instituted
by unelected agency managers.
It would be interesting to see just how many individuals and corporations
have moved headquarters out of the State and, if their management would divulge,
what actual reasons they used to justify the expense of the move. My memory is
still clear that when the decision was made by the parent company to move the
headquarters of Amoco Production Company to Chicago Amoco President Randy
Yost publicly stated that he did not want to move there, but simply 'Oklahoma is
not friendly to business' (as best in my memory).
And now it has been released that House Speaker Wright, R(INO?)-
Weatherford, has submitted a House Resolution that would amend the State
Constitution to lower the vote requirement to raise taxes from the present 75% to,
if my hearing is correct, 60%. This was heard on the radio Wednesday Morning
January 10 and the percent could have even been 50%. It would, of course,
require a vote of the people in November to take effect, but that would just open
the door to more taxation and probably more businesses and people deciding to
move out and thus lower the tax receipts. Are they mindless down there?
For those currently uninformed the acronym 'RINO' stands for 'Republican
In Name Only' and should be applied to anyone who campaigns on low taxes,
with no increases, and economies of operation, in accordance with the Republican
Party Platform, and then violates the campaign promises when in office. It is sad,
but there are far too many RINOs holding elective office all over the Nation. That
was what I presumed PRESBO meant when he promised to "drain the swamp" in
the District of Columbia.
Along that line, it should be recalled that it was during the Administration of FDR,
beginning in March of 1933, that residents of DC were first allowed to vote, and
thus have a say in who the elective bosses were to be. Also, the time when the
'Civil Service Laws' were instituted which allowed them to have total job security.
That was the beginning of the 'swamp' because they were able to thwart the efforts
of an incoming President. Before that a new Administration would normally replace
all the 'bureaucrats' with their own loyal people that they could rely on for support.
It was much better then!!
END
Composed January 9, 2018
Robert W. McDowell, Jr. © 2018 841 Lynwood Lane
918-451-1051 Broken Arrow OK 74011-8608
Email: abdmcfpi@localnet.com