OKLAHOMA SENATE DISTRICT 30 / The Big Picture
We’re down to the last two weeks of the legislative session, and the big news is that the governor and Republican legislative leaders have reached agreement on the 2026 budget. We’ve been fighting for greater transparency around the budget process for years, and while there’s been some improvements, most lawmakers, Republicans and Democrats alike, see few details before an agreement is made, making it extremely difficult to let taxpayers know how we’re spending their money, or if we’re actually solving real problems in the lives of Oklahoma families. We expect over the next week to get more details and begin voting on the budget. This makes it a very murky and chaotic process, with almost no time for public input on these huge spending decisions that impact real lives.
Here’s my main takeaway — this budget doesn’t solve our biggest problems. The budget deal includes a .25 percent income tax cut. First of all, the budget deal is centered around a tax cut package that doesn’t truly solve how Oklahoma’s tax code favors the very rich at the expense of working-class families in this state. It’s time for a real conversation about how, with real tax reform, we can put money back into the pockets of hard-working Oklahomans who are struggling to keep up with the rising cost of living. The budget we’ll be asked to vote on is more of the same – rewarding those at the top and filled with special interest giveaways.
For example, someone making $12 or less an hour would see about a $21 savings this year on their tax bill. That includes a lot of working Oklahomans trying to raise a family. For someone earning Oklahoma’s average income, about $65,000 a year, they’ll see a yearly difference of $143 – about $2.75 a week. The biggest winners in this deal are the richest folks in the state. They’ll be rewarded with a $3,000 savings on their tax bill. People who are earning minimum wage won’t really get any real benefit at all, and middle-class families won’t even see enough difference in their monthly paycheck to take their family out for a single fast-food meal. Unless you earn well over a half million dollars a year, this is a terrible deal and does little to help you afford the basics like gas, groceries and paying rent.
Not only does this deal fail to provide real tax reform, but this year’s budget also already has less funding to invest in the services we know Oklahomans care about and need – things like good public schools and rural healthcare access. This tax cut will mean further reductions in those services down the road, all while we still don’t know the full impact of looming federal budget cuts that are poised to hit communities across our state hard. This budget prioritizes a big bonus for the rich, instead of putting real money back into the pockets of hard-working Oklahomans and investing in basic needs and public education that we know will improve the quality of life in our state, create jobs, and boost our economy.
Through a series of town halls across Oklahoma, folks have been showing up in large numbers telling us loud and clear they want to see greater investments in our public schools. We’re hearing the same from business leaders. While the budget includes a $25 million increase for public schools, it includes double that, a $50 million increase in private school vouchers. That’s an eye-popping $250 million total going to a program that is serving families who mostly make well over $250,000 a year. Wealthy private schools get the higher increase again, even though we’ve seen that 92 percent of voucher funding goes to families who already have their children in private school. Most children in our state, about 700,000, still attend public schools. Those students deserve a well-funded school that has a quality teacher in every classroom. Instead, we remain 49th in the nation in public education.
We’re also deeply concerned that we still don’t know the full impact of the financial mismanagement at the Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services. We have a duty to taxpayers to investigate if there is fraud or mistakes in the long term, but in the short term we have to make sure Oklahomans in mental health crisis can access care quickly. This budget proposal will put supplemental funds into this short-term need but does nothing for future problems. We need to make sure we’re strengthening ways people can get mental health care, or the cost to our state will be much higher in the long run because people could end up in hospitals, incarcerated, or homeless. Again, the proposed budget does not solve that problem.
I’m deeply disappointed that while the budget work began with a decent amount of transparency, public input was ignored as we moved further through the process. Every member of the Senate, regardless of party, represents about 82 thousand people. When transparency is compromised in how our budget is written, the voices of the Oklahomans we represent are silenced. We are committed to creating budgets that solve the serious problems Oklahomans face.
Too much of what we’ve seen this session puts special interests and those with deep pockets first – all on the backs of hard-working Oklahomans just trying to get by. Senate Democrats will continue to fight for a budget that puts people over politics. Onward!
