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Oklahoma Senate
Senate Finance Committee Defeats Speaker’s “Keep Taxing Oklahomans” Bill
Senator Jay Paul Gumm
The latest attack news release from the Speaker of the House is “deceptive at best” about actions of the Senate Finance Committee, the panel’s chairman said Wednesday.
In a news release, Republican Speaker Todd Hiett lamented the Senate Finance Committee’s defeat of the so-called “Come Home Oklahoma” act, a tax giveaway to individuals who may have never set foot in Oklahoma – part of the REDI initiative.
“Tax policy and budgets are a reflection of our values,” said Sen. Jay Paul Gumm, a Democrat from Durant and Finance Committee chair. “With this bill, Todd Hiett said clearly that he values anyone from outside of Oklahoma more than he does those who have made their lives and are raising their families here.”
The measure would give any person who has lived in another state for at least four years a five-year, 100-percent income tax exemption if they move to certain areas of Oklahoma that have lost population. Anyone currently living in Oklahoma would still have to pay their full amount of income taxes under Hiett’s bill.
“How in the world Todd Hiett can look the hard-working Oklahoma families in the eye and say some newcomer deserves a tax break they cannot get is beyond me,” said Gumm. “This wasn’t ‘Come Home Oklahoma’, this was ‘Keep Taxing Oklahomans.’ The bill is a very bad idea that is patently unfair to the very people it purported to help.”
A former chamber of commerce executive, Gumm helped create one of the nation’s most successful rural job creation programs in his hometown of Durant. Drawing on that economic development experience, he said “Come Home Oklahoma” was a “completely backward” way to achieve growth.
“This proposal only makes sense if everyone in rural Oklahoma is fully employed at the top of their earning potential,” he said. “That clearly is not the case. The challenge in rural Oklahoma is a shortage of opportunities. That is what we should address, not this ‘smoke-and-mirrors’ quick fix that will do nothing to build an economy.”
During the debate, Gumm laid out a scenario the bill would create he said would outrage working families. If a new national business moved to rural Oklahoma, chances are they would bring their top, high-wage management who would not have to pay income taxes under the bill.
The rank-and-file employees – likely lifelong Oklahomans who have always paid their taxes and have roots in this state – would have to pay their full income tax on salaries far less than executives.
Also, the bill would create a situation where two people – one a lifelong Oklahoman and the other a newcomer – working side-by-side in the same job would have vastly different take-home paychecks. The lifelong Oklahoman would have been severely shortchanged by Hiett’s “Keep Taxing Oklahomans” plan.
As to the charge the Senate Finance Committee killed repeal of the estate tax, Gumm said if Speaker Hiett will look on his own House calendar, he will find a bill that passed the Finance Committee and the Senate earlier this year.
“That fact begs the question: which is more important, the policy or whether the Speaker’s name is attached to it?” Gumm asked. “His press release answers that question. If he feels slighted, perhaps he can persuade one of his members to let him carry the bill in the House.”
Finally, Gumm said he was proud of the Senate Finance Committee’s work this year. “The committee members, of both parties, worked very hard and realized that not every bill deserves a hearing or even to be passed,” he said. “We were more than fair, even to bad ideas like this one of the Speaker’s.
“Despite what his deceptive news release says, we gave hearings to bills without regard to partisan affiliations,” Gumm said. “If you counted them up, my guess is we heard a much greater percentage of Republican bills in the Finance Committee than the percentage of Democratic bills the Speaker allows to be heard in the House.
“His shrill complaints are getting harder and harder to believe.”
