Source: Jacob McCleland/KGOU The Oklahoma state budget is facing a crisis. Legislators face a $1.3 billion shortfall in the upcoming fiscal year that will result in cuts to agencies. At the same time, several state leaders have floated proposals to fund a pay raise for Oklahoma teachers. A roundtable discussion at the Oklahoma Policy Institute tackled the state’s budget crisis …
Insure Oklahoma Gets Short-Term Extension, But Most Low-Income Oklahoma Still Without Health Insurance
Source: David Blatt/The Journal Record Two major stories about health coverage in Oklahoma made the news last week. One was the announcement that the Obama administration has granted a second one-year extension for Insure Oklahoma, a Medicaid-funded health insurance program that provides coverage to some 18,500 low-income working-age Oklahomans and their families. The other was the release of a study by …
Former U.S. Rep J.C. Watts: Oklahoma Must Think Outside the Cell
Source: Gene Perry/OkPolicy As Oklahoma considers reopening prisons to accommodate a burgeoning inmate population, the time is ripe for state leaders to apply their principles of limited government and personal responsibility to criminal justice reform. The Sooner state has the nation’s fourth-highest per capita incarceration rate and the highest female incarceration rate. State taxpayers pay dearly for this. If Oklahoma …