Dems opt to thumb noses at constituents

THE thing about putting legislation to a vote is it provides clarity. Wednesday, groups ranging from school teachers to the mentally ill found out Democrats care less about them than about catering to Bernie Sanders activists.

The Oklahoma House voted against roughly $450 million in combined tax increases, including a $1.50-per-pack cigarette tax increase, other tobacco tax increases, a 6-cents-per-gallon fuel tax increase, and imposing a consumption tax on 3.2 beer. The plan would have prevented immediate budget cuts at health agencies and funded pay raises for teachers and state employees.

Under the Oklahoma Constitution, the plan needed the support of 75 percent of House members to pass. Fifty-four of 72 Republicans (75 percent) supported the plan; most of the Republicans who didn’t philosophically oppose all tax increases. But Democrats are strong advocates of tax increases and have specifically endorsed elements of the plan, including the cigarette tax. Yet not

one House Democrat supported it. They voted instead to block funding and force cuts at state agencies.

Multiple sources familiar with budget negotiations say Democratic Leader Scott Inman of Del City expressly said increasing taxes on energy producers was more important to his caucus than increasing teacher pay. Yet after leading the charge against funding efforts, including on the House floor Wednesday morning, Inman didn’t even vote and then abruptly announced he was resigning.

Teachers weren’t the only ones tossed overboard by Democrats.

With their votes, Reps. David Perryman, Collin Walke, Eric Proctor, Jason Dunnington, Steve Kouplen, Brian Renegar, Cory Williams and Chuck Hoskin showed they would rather ding local energy employers than preserve outpatient services for almost 200,000 Oklahomans with mental illnesses and addictions or restore a refundable Earned Income Tax Credit for low-income earners.

Reps. Forrest Bennett, Meloyde Blancett, Matt Meredith, Regina Goodwin, Shane Stone, Claudia Griffith, Cyndi Munson, Ben Loring and George Young proved they would rather make empty political gestures than protect hospitals, nursing homes and other Medicaid providers from reimbursement cuts that could reduce poor citizens’ access to health care.

Reps. Johnny Tadlock, Donnie Condit, Mickey Dollens, Ed Cannaday, Emily Virgin, Karen Gaddis, William Fourkiller, Jason Lowe, Jacob Rosecrants and Monroe Nichols showed they would rather bash Oklahomans employed in the energy industry than preserve services for the elderly, children in foster care, and those with intellectual and physical disabilities served by the Department of Human Services.

Even as they bashed “Big Oil,” Democrats tacitly fought to preserve Big Tobacco’s profits by opposing tobacco tax increases that could reduce consumption and save lives. Tobacco companies, unlike oil and gas producers, don’t employ many Oklahomans directly. Yet Democrats chose to target their fire on local employers rather than out-of-state tobacco companies.

When Sanders, a self-described socialist, defeated Hillary Clinton in Oklahoma’s 2016 Democratic presidential primary, it highlighted the party’s drift to the extreme left. Now the Oklahoma Democratic Party’s traditional constituent groups — the poor, teachers and state employees — are learning the hard way what that transition means for them.