A few weeks ago I said we were making progress on the Oklahoma state budget. We were, but a candidate for governor keeps derailing the process. Perhaps he's more interested in political posturing than in legislating.

Capitol Considerations: 

A Weekly Column by Sen. Micheal Bergstrom

Who Should You Blame For This Mess?

Oklahoma’s legislature has been struggling with a mess, a fiscal mess, and it has been getting messier as the days and weeks have rolled by.

A month ago, I was optimistic about our chances of getting a quality budget done before the end of session. Today I’m thinking we may end up in a special session. From what we are being told, we will likely remain in session through the weekend and right on through next week, with no days off, which is fine.

So let me tell you about what’s been going on. Those who read my column should have noted that I don’t spill a lot of ink describing the actions or inactions of the Democrats, or, for that matter, of the House of Representatives. Today I think I must.

The House, which is required by the state constitution to start all revenue raising measures, has sent multiple tax increase bills to the Senate. Since I was just elected in November, I can honestly say I wasn't involved in creating the budget hole we find ourselves in, and I have an aversion to raising taxes, but we have a $900 million hole, and we can't cut that much in a $7 billion budget and still maintain essential services. So I have held my nose and voted for some of those taxes.

Every time, after we send those bills back to the House, they have balked and bailed out.

Now part of that is because the Democrats in the House, led by someone who is running for governor and who seems more interested in playing partisan politics than in legislating, have been blocking any effort to solve this.

Another part is that the leadership of the Democrats was not at the negotiating table in the process until this week. In my opinion, they should have been there much sooner.

Possible avenues to solving the budget problem seem to include finding and cutting waste in agencies (though I doubt much will happen in this area), a cigarette tax, an increase in the oil and gas production tax rate, gas and diesel fuel tax increase (which would be dedicated to roads and bridges and would still leave Oklahoma below the regional average), reduction of a variety of business tax credits, an elimination of some oil and gas tax rebates.

Who knows what the final package will look like.

But now it is up to the House and the Democrats to decide if they actually want to fix the budget. Senate Republicans have been consistently pushing good policy. Unfortunately, on the House side and especially in the Democratic caucus, we have too many who are more interested in playing politics than governing and putting our great state’s citizens first.

My hope is that, since we are nearing our budget deadline, the politicking will give way to legislating.

I am interested in feedback from my constituents, so if you have any questions or comments, please email me at bergstrom@oksenate.gov. My office can also be reached by phone at 405-521-5561.

-30-