• Higher ed gets first funding boost in years • Coburn turns attention to state issues
TULSA — Former U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn said Wednesday that he will “work as hard as I can” to overturn a $400 million revenue bill lawmakers say is necessary to pay for raises for teachers, school support personnel and state employees.
Speaking to the Rotary Club of Tulsa, Coburn said he supports more money for teachers and instruction but said it should be found in existing revenue and by eliminating tax credits for wind energy.
As it turned out, Coburn said this just hours before the Oklahoma House of Representatives voted to terminate the last major tax preference available to wind, an 85 cents-on-thedollar refund of existing income tax credits for generation.
“I think there’s been a great shift away, in our politics in Oklahoma, from what Oklahoma stands for, and it really disturbs me,” Coburn said.
He trashed the state’s legislative leadership and Gov. Mary Fallin, saying they had taken an easy way out by agreeing to the state’s first general tax increase in 28 years.
“I’ve been in Washington,” he said. “I know how easy it is to raise taxes.”
Coburn, who served 16 years in Congress but has no experience in state government, said he is turning his attention to the latter because he is concerned about the direction the state is going. He said state government lacks accountability and transparency and that schools and teachers could have more money if the governor and Legislature did a better job of tamping down administrative costs, duplication and unnecessary spending.
“Teachers were a pawn in this,” he said. “Why is it we can’t gain efficiencies?
“We’re not spending money where it really matters,” Coburn said. “Our greatest asset is our children. We ought to have our investment in the people who are going ... to make a difference.
“We ought to have a vision that says our teachers are going to be paid more than any across the country so we can have the best teachers and so we can hold them accountable,” Coburn said. “And that is possible in Oklahoma. But it is not possible with the leadership we’ve seen, both in the legislative branch and the executive branch this year.”
Asked later about his involvement in an ongoing referendum petition drive to repeal the revenue bill underpinning the current state budget and increases in education spending, Coburn said he is a “spokesman” but not involved in organizing the effort.
By at least one definition, raising taxes in Oklahoma is more difficult than anything Coburn has experienced because of the state constitution’s threefourths legislative majority requirements and because of its referendum petition provision.
That said, it has been argued that Oklahoma has worked around those restrictions through higher fees and by massaging the state tax code in such a way that, while some changes do cause some people and businesses to pay more taxes, they are not for legal purposes considered tax increases.