We Need YOU to Act Now!
We seldom put out a special edition newsletter but this is one of those crucial moments in the legislative session and if you have ever emailed or called a legislator now is the time to do it again and if you haven't now is the time to do it for the first time.
Tomorrow House Leadership is going to try to ramm a couple of Rep. Leslie Osborn's bills through the House. Both went through committee and both are scheduled to be heard tomorrow. Both will ad billions of new taxes and increased taxes upon Oklahoma taxpayers. Both need to be stopped.
The first bill freezes your standard deduction to current levels when you file your Oklahoma taxes. Traditionally the state has used the Federal standard deduction. If this bill passes the amount will NOT go up as the Federal standard deduction goes up, inflation be damned, the state wants more of your money. You would have to fill out the LONG state tax form or pay an accountant to do that for you if you want to take full deductions.
The second bill is illegal and unconstitutional as hell, it is log rolling, the inclusion of multiple issues in one bill. What the bastards are doing is coupling the killing of the old Gross Production tax rate deal that has set the rates at 2%, down from 7% in the past, while all the surrounding states still kept the 7 or 7/5% rate. This was corporate welfare at its worst and killing this old tax credit/reduction is a good thing BUT House Leadership has bundled that billions of dollars in cigarette tax increase with a gas tax increase of 6 cents per gallon. So they are killing a tax credit and increasing two taxes, pure log rolling at its worst.
Legally and constitutionaly each measure should stand alone and be judged on its own merits. This can still be done regardless of what House Leadership says or anyone says, they can alway suspend rules or just ignore the rules and the constitution like they are doing in this case.
Here is the info on this huge tax legislation.
Read it for yourself so no one can lie to you about it.
Another wooly bugger that will come up soon is a bill that will allow companies with unused tax credits (used to offset or pay their existing tax bill) to convert them into cash by presenting the tax credit to the state and geting a check for 50% of the total. This does three very bad things.
First it clears out a huge backlog of existing tax credits that the brokers have been selling for as little as 25 cents on the dollars. There are so many of surplus tax credits out there that their value has plummeted the last few years. Now the value will instantly double and the brokers and tax credit owners will clean up. These folks will be presenting the state with a demand for payment for hundreds of millions of dolars as soon as this bill becomes law.
Second, it establishes a floor for the value of the existing tax credits at 50% of face value. The free market won't set their price, the legislators will have just doubled the value of the existing un converted tax credits and it will never again be less than 50%.
Third, if this bill passes there WILL be another BILLION dollar hole in the 2018 state budget, guaranteed..... the tax credit owners and the brokers will have made a fortune off this one peice of legislation.
Now here is how these bastards have set this up. They need 71 votes to pass a tax increase or new tax. They have that many Republican votes but ten to fifteen Republicans will not vote for any tax increases this year, period.
That means that House Leadership is going to sell the farm to the Democrats in order to get the 25 Democrat votes, or enough of them to offset the real Republican House members that vote against the tax increases. The Democrats will have a blank check to stop any abortion bills, pass crazy libera legislation, or just go shopping with their liberal wish list of crazy legislation.
What YOU need to do is to start calling AND emailing tonight and keep it up till this time tomorrow night. Visit this link if you aren't sure who your State Representative is.
Visit this link to find your legislator's contact info, you can email directly from this page and their phone numbers are there too. Call at night, in the early morning, their answering machines will catch the calls. Email several times or get your spouse and kids and friends to email or call.
Flood these bastards with phone calls in the next 12 hours and keep it up no matter what they say or do. And cover all the bases, tell them in polite but rock hard language; NO TAX INCREASES, NO FEE INCREASES, NO NEW TAXES, NO NEW REVENUE PERIOD!
The conservative Republicans have laid out a plan to fill the budget gap by eliminating corporate welfare tax credits, by cutting school administration costs and increasing class sizes enough to cut some education spending AND give a small raise to teachers. Then there is a plan to bring in around 40 million dollars a year by diverting forfeited bail bond directly to the state instead of the local court clerks. The Mental Health Department can be line itemed, forcing Terri White to actually spend money on the insane and less on wealthy DHS contractors. There are dozens and dozens of ways to cut ten million here and five million there and fill the budget gap IF the crooks' hands can be taken out of the politician's butts where they have been playing meat puppet.
Here is a list of their phone numbers and names. Be sure and say that you are a constituent in their district and give your address or zip code. Be ready to be lied to, there are billions of your dollars at stake here and the donor class wants that money.
| Babinec, Greg 33 R (405) 557-7304 Baker, Rhonda 60 R (405) 557-7311 Bennett, Forrest 92 D (405) 557-7404 Bennett, John 2 R (405) 557-7315 Biggs, Scott 51 R (405) 557-7405 Blancett, Meloyde 78 D (405) 557-7334 Bush, Carol 70 R (405) 557-7359 Caldwell, Chad 40 R (405) 557-7317 Calvey, Kevin 82 R (405) 557-7357 Cannaday, Ed 15 D (405) 557-7375 Casey, Dennis 35 R (405) 557-7344 Cleveland, Bobby 20 R (405) 557-7308 Cockroft, Josh 27 R (405) 557-7349 Condit, Donnie 18 D (405) 557-7376 Coody, Jeff 63 R (405) 557-7307 Derby, Dale 74 R (405) 557-7377 District 28 28 (405) 557-7372 District 75 75 (405) 557-7356 District 76 76 (405) 557-7347 Dollens, Mickey 93 D (405) 557-7371 Downing, Tim 42 R (405) 557-7365 Dunlap, Travis 10 R (405) 557-7402 Dunnington, Jason 88 D (405) 557-7396 Echols, Jon 90 R (405) 557-7354 Enns, John 41 R (405) 557-7321 Faught, George 14 R (405) 557-7310 Fetgatter, Scott 16 R (405) 557-7373 Ford, Roger 95 R (405) 557-7314 Fourkiller, William 86 D (405) 557-7394 Frix, Avery 13 R (405) 557-7302 Gann, Tom 8 R (405) 557-7364 Goodwin, Regina 73 D (405) 557-7406 Griffith, Claudia 45 D (405) 557-7386 Hall, Elise 100 R (405) 557-7403 Hardin, Tommy 49 R (405) 557-7383 Henke, Katie 71 R (405) 557-7361 Hilbert, Kyle 29 R (405) 557-7353 Hoskin, Chuck 6 D (405) 557-7319 Humphrey, Justin 19 R (405) 557-7382 Inman, Scott 94 D (405) 557-7370 Jordan, John Paul 43 R (405) 557-7352 Kannady, Chris 91 R (405) 557-7337 Kerbs, Dell 26 R (405) 557-7345 Kouplen, Steve 24 D (405) 557-7306 Lawson, Mark 30 R (405) 557-7414 Lepak, Mark 9 R (405) 557-7380 Loring, Ben 7 D (405) 557-7399 Lowe, Jason 97 D (405) 557-7367 Martin, Scott 46 R (405) 557-7329 Martinez, Ryan 39 R (405) 557-7342 | McBride, Mark 53 R (405) 557-7346 McCall, Charles 22 R (405) 557-7412 McDaniel, Randy 83 R (405) 557-7409 McDugle, Kevin 12 R (405) 557-7388 McEachin, Scott 67 R (405) 557-7341 McEntire, Marcus 50 R (405) 557-7327 Meredith, Matt 4 D (405) 557-7408 Montgomery, John 62 R (405) 557-7374 Moore, Lewis 96 R (405) 557-7400 Mulready, Glen 68 R (405) 557-7340 Munson, Cyndi 85 D (405) 557-7392 Murdock, Casey 61 R (405) 557-7384 Murphey, Jason 31 R (405) 557-7350 Newton, Carl 58 R (405) 557-7339 Nichols, Monroe 72 D (405) 557-7391 Nollan, Jadine 66 R (405) 557-7390 O'Donnell, Terry 23 R (405) 557-7379 Ortega, Charles 52 R (405) 557-7369 Osborn, Leslie 47 R (405) 557-7333 Osburn, Mike 81 R (405) 557-7360 Ownbey, Pat 48 R (405) 557-7326 Park, Scooter 65 R (405) 557-7305 Perryman, David 56 D (405) 557-7401 Pfeiffer, John 38 R (405) 557-7332 Proctor, Eric 77 D (405) 557-7410 Renegar, Brian 17 D (405) 557-7381 Ritze, Mike 80 R (405) 557-7338 Roberts, Dustin 21 R (405) 557-7366 Roberts, Sean 36 R (405) 557-7322 Rogers, Michael 98 R (405) 557-7362 Russ, Todd 55 R (405) 557-7312 Sanders, Mike 59 R (405) 557-7407 Sears, Earl 11 R (405) 557-7358 Stone, Shane 89 D (405) 557-7397 Strohm, Chuck 69 R (405) 557-7331 Tadlock, Johnny 1 D (405) 557-7363 Teague, Tess 101 R (405) 557-7395 Thomsen, Todd 25 R (405) 557-7336 Vaughan, Steve 37 R (405) 557-7355 Virgin, Emily 44 D (405) 557-7323 Walke, Collin 87 D (405) 557-7335 Wallace, Kevin 32 R (405) 557-7368 Watson, Weldon 79 R (405) 557-7330 West, Josh 5 R (405) 557-7415 West, Kevin 54 R (405) 557-7343 West, Rick 3 R (405) 557-7413 West, Tammy 84 R (405) 557-7348 Williams, Cory 34 D (405) 557-7411 Worthen, Rande 64 R (405) 557-7398 Wright, Harold 57 R (405) 557-7325 Young, George 99 D (405) 557-7393 |
