Teacher Strike Enters Second Week
Even the legislators that used the impending teacher strike to raise taxes in excess of the needs are growing tired of the threats and militancy of the union thugs, AKA teachers. After bending over backward and taking what will be a huge political hit in the coming primary elections the OEA is targeting the very legislators that supported them.
Last week we captured this OEA post asking for candidates against the following list of legislators and nary a Democrat will be found on the list:
Babinec - District 33, Baker - District 60, Bennett - District 92, Bush - District 70, Caldwell- District 40, Calvey - District 82, Casey - District 35, Cleveland - District 20, Cockroft- District 27, Coody - District 63, Downing - District 42, Dunlap - District 10 Echols - District 90, Enns- District 41. Faught- District 14, Fetgatter- District 16, Ford - District 95, Ford - District 76, Frix- District 13, Gann - District 8, Hall- District 100, Hardin - District 49, Henke- District 71, Hilbert - District 29, Humphrey- District 19 Jordan- District 43, Kannady- District 91, Kerbs- District 26, Lawson - District 30, Lepak- District 9, Martinez - District 39. McCall - District 22, McBride - District 53 McDaniel - District 83, McDugle - District 12, Mceachin - District 67, Mcentire - District 50, Montgomery - District 62, Moore - District 96, Mulready - District 68, Murphy - District 31, Newton - District 58, Nollan- District 66, O'Donnell - District 23, Osborn - District 47 Osburn- District 81, Ownbey- District 48, Park - District 65, Pfeiffer- District 38, Roberts- District 21, Roberts- District 36, Rogers - District 98, Russ - District 55, Sanders – District, Sears - District 11, Strohm- District 69, Taylor - District 28, Teague- District 101, Thomsen - District 25, Vaughan - District 37, Wallace - District 32, Watson - District 79, West - District 5, West - District 54, West(R) - District 3, West(K) - District 84, Worthern- District 64, Wright - District 57
Which is a bit hilarious, RINOs voting for tax increases and still being targeted for not doing enough. The real purpose of the OEA is of course to elect Democrats and seize control of the legislature in order to gain more than 53% of the total state budget.
The lies continue as the teachers push for more taxes and spending. One of the most popular missives is that teachers don't have text books or they are falling apart and twenty years old. Of course many schools are using digital textbooks that can be updated for a fraction of the cost of new books. And of course the line item in the budget for textbooks was eliminated after the state Department of Education asked lawmakers to remove the line item after the school superintendents said the money wasn't being used in many districts, Hofmeister asked for the change and got it. A year later the "no money for textbooks" excuse began being heard.
The following list of demands and actions was posted on Facebook:
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Here are my thoughts on the Teacher Walkout:
1. We need to prepare for a siege, this will last a month, if we hold firm. I believe that a few greedy rich people, Gov. Fallin, and McCall believe they can wait this out and break the spirit of the Teachers Unions and our movement to return OK to a state which functions for the people of Oklahoma.
2. Churches need to begin raising money to help their communities public school Staff who are about to lose their paychecks during the walkout. This can be ammunition if pictures of school staff receiving cutoff notices and evictions begin to appear in the news. OR this could be a huge sign of solidarity and our seriousness about this State changing how it runs.
3.People who live in and around OKC need to open their homes - as they can to teachers who live further away and who want to come and be at the Capitol for a few days - it is expensive and exhausting to commute for hours every day.
4. The Teachers Unions need to begin coordinating large groups of teachers coming to the Capitol in shifts - the turnout the last few days is AMAZING but not sustainable over the course of a month.
5. The conversation in the media - TV, Radio, Blogs - needs to be reframed. This is NOT a fight for salaries. This is a fight for Oklahoma. Who controls our state? Lobbyists, Corporations, a few greedy wealthy individuals? OR do the People of OK, who have learned that gutting State tax collections leads to loss of the very services taxes are meant to provide, give their Representatives the direction of policy? Do our State Representatives understand that they must be accountable to the people of OK and not to out of state agendas and the Harold Hamms of the world?
Thinking about what happened last Thursday when Harold Hamm walked into the gallery - I believe the 5% GPT was already vetted and approved by him. His presence only led credence to a storyline that 5%, which is still well under the state and regional average for GPT, was a great victory and consession. (sic)
Republicans planned all along that Thursday evening to gut $50 million from the passed budget for the Hotel surcharge. Leadership in the House reassured those concerned over and over that the Hotel tax would be taken care of for churches.
Teachers and students are leading the way - this is not the time for compromise - this is the time to put in the sweat and sacrifice it will take to wrench our State, its budget funding, and our communal show of values and ethics from those who are in control and who have turned away from ethical and moral behavior."
The socialistic demands are plain and the desire to use the strike to gain far more than school funding, they aim to take control of the state from Republicans and damn the voters that gutted the Democratic Party in the statewide offices, the House, and the Senate. Passage of HB 1086 became one of the Union demands
HB 1086 is a gutting of the Capital Gains Exemption, removing a tax break for property or Oklahoma based company stock held more than two years, transferring the "profits" into a lower taxed Capital Gains bracket instead of the standard income tax bracket. This tax change would become one of the few taxes that the rich would actually have to pay. After becoming law in 2004 around 18,000 tax returns have used this exemption, around 1,300 people per year or 1out of 846 taxpayers. Over 86% of these filers had adjusted gross incomes over $200,000 per year so a 5% tax added if HB 1086 becomes law means around $10,000 per year in additional state tax. But 824 of the filers utilizing the tax break made more than one million dollars per year so it is indeed a rich man tax. 64% of the income sheltered went to those with over one million dollars per year income, those with $50,000 per year income or less received 2.4% of the benefits.
Some farmers and ranchers will be hit along with real estate developers. But that is easily fixed by adding an agriculture exemption to any changes. But the original state question that provided these tax breaks was a bargain that raised tobacco taxes, in effect a transfer of taxes from the wealthy onto the backs of smokers. No doubt this tax exemption was passed at the behest of the wealthy but is class envy enough to increase taxes?
Our take on this is that AFTER audits are done and waste and inefficiency are slashed, we could look at raising taxes on the wealthy. This is a lot like the GPT tax, it hits fewer people and it hits the people that can most afford to pay, but without reform we would find ourselves back fighting off more tax increases as then never ending maw of teachers unions and bureaucracies would consume even more if left unchecked.
The strike is not statewide, fewer than 200 schools are participating out of the 500 plus school districts. The passage of the 18% pay raise (15% for starting teachers) and $1250.00 raise for support staff was far in excess of what it took to end the West Virginia teacher strike, which was 5%, and it was done with considerable political pain from the RINOs. It was rushed, one hour for the state reps to read the bill and no time for consulting with constituents. After the passage in the House there were enough angry constituents contacting their House members that the required 76 votes were no longer there. And the Senate wasn't liking the $5.00 hotel tax or the gambling expansion which together brought in seventy five million dollars, and Oklahoma has always learned that passing things for education usually meant that the incoming revenue was oversold. The lottery was supposed to bring in three hundred million per year but it nets the state less than 70 million most years, so they knew that the income produced by these new or increased taxes was likely going to be short.
The House put their foot down and made it clear that any changes would mean the bill coming back and a refusal by leadership to hearing the bill again and taking that punishing vote again, a vote that would be doomed from the start. The Senate had little option other than signing it and of course tax hog Mary Fallin signed it with a big old sh*t eating grin on her face. The Senate then passed another bill that nullified the new the hotel tax, creating a $50,000,000 budget hole, which enraged the teachers who either didn't understand that it was this or nothing or they could care less about any political cost to the Republicans for passing the hotel tax.
Then the massive bomb went off that was Oklahoma Taxpayers Unite. This group had been forming quietly in the weeks before the teacher strike and tax increase and was accelerated in order to stop the Senate from allowing the hotel tax to survive. Senator Tom Coburn walked into the Capitol that day and a furor erupted among the RINOs and Democrats and screams of "Civil war" began. Suddenly the RINOs would be called out for their massive tax increase and the likelihood of a referendum repeal of the tax was nearly certain. Avoiding the beating from the teachers didn't happen and now a beating from their conservative votes was surely to happen. All that pain for nothing, worse than nothing, it was going to cost the hell out fo the RINOs and they knew it.
The new group, OTU, isn't against teacher raises but it is against raising taxes for teacher raises. Waste and inefficiencies are already known and can be eliminated to generate more classroom dollars. They quickly posted a petition to audit the State Education Department and are working on a petition challenge to the massive tax increases for the November 6th ballot. Around 42,000 signatures are needed to force a statewide vote on the tax increases and there are far more smokers in the state than that. Plus you have the conservatives in the state aligning with the Chamber of Commerce crowd, no doubt an uncomfortable experience for both but an alliance that will stand for this one issue.
Suddenly the teachers realized what OTU was going to do and rage ensued. All their hard work would be evaporated as as soon as the petition is certified all the new taxes are stopped and no raises can be given in August. Can they get the required signatures? If you are a smoker and someone shoved a clipboard in front of you saying "sign this and your cigarettes will stay $10.00 per carton cheaper.", what will you do?
Remember that the people rejected the David Boren penny tax in 2016 by a landslide margin. People are upset that the kids are being held hostage, that federal testing required for federal dollars is at risk, that they have been forced to adjust their lives to care for children due to the school shutdowns, and that they weren't given time to discuss the tax increases with their representatives. Talk radio and Facebook posts are heavily against the teacher strike, legislators have refused to vote on further education funding for the year, death threats have forced some capital staffers to stay home, unruly teachers were removed from the galleys, and many a nasty sign has been shown on the news and social media attacking Fallin and the Republicans.
The solution to school funding is not simple but it is doable. First focus on illegal immigration and get those kids out of the public schools. Deport their parents and insist that the feds step up and make it possible to deport the kids till they turn 18 years old if the anchor baby citizenship can't be solved. Parents are responsible for their kids, not taxpayers, and illegal parents have no right to dump their spawn onto the taxpayer's back. Plenty of waste in state government has been laid out. Auditing the welfare rolls, sooner care, medicaid, all will return hundreds of millions in savings. Audit every single state agency, all the school districts and force consolidation of admin and close the tiny schools that cannot or will not be supported by the local taxpayers. If they want a school, then they can pay for it. Expand charter schools that operate on one third the money of public education, $4500 per year and no local ad valorem taxes are used. Consolidate state services, only one mental health program and one drug treatment program, and find out what each service costs per person and determine if the state even needs to be involved in providing such services.
