TABOR Would Destroy Oklahoma Higher Education

Those of us in Oklahoma higher education need to start speaking out aggressively against TABOR, the so-called Taxpayers’ Bill of Rights, which will decimate the college and university system in this state if it is eventually enacted.

With strong support from the state’s biased, right-wing corporate media, TABOR supporters are now circulating an initiative petition to get a constitutional amendment issue on the ballot next November. The petition needs approximately 200,000 signatures.

If approved by voters, the TABOR amendment would limit the growth of the state government’s budget to a formula tied to the inflation rate and population growth. Anything collected over that amount would be refunded to taxpayers.

But some aspects of government, including higher education, often grow beyond this formula. For example, Oklahoma higher education has recently tried to meet the financial demand of growing enrollments. These growing enrollments are a good sign the state might soon begin increasing its low college graduation rate.

In addition, a relatively poor state like Oklahoma needs at least a little flexibility in improving its infrastructure in order to maintain a bare minimum of “quality of life” when compared to most other states and to attract outside business investment. Also, in most cases, when states use tax money collectively and wisely to improve quality of life, residents actually save more money than they would get from token tax refunds. That is because, among other things, they end up paying lower college tuition, have fewer car repairs, and enjoy better and less expensive health care.

So would you rather pay $2,000 more each year in college tuition for your child, or get a $50 refund check?

The right-wing may frame its tax-relief ideology in the language of populism, but it is based on the elitist, neocon concept of transferring wealth to the richest in our society as it eliminates educational opportunities for middle-class people.

Colorado government has operated under a TABOR amendment since the early 1990s, and it has been a disaster for the state, especially for higher education. It is so bad that voters are now asked by the state’s Republican Governor Bill Owens (yes, you read that right . . . REPUBLICAN) to rescind TABOR for five years so the state does not become like, well, like Oklahoma or Mississippi or Louisiana. Colorado voters go to the polls November 1 to decide this issue.

So this Colorado mess is what we want to bring to Oklahoma, which already struggles with low educational funding rates, infrastructure problems, and under funded social programs?

It is like limiting educational, social, and hunger-prevention programs in a Third World country because a handful of immoral, ultra-rich tyrants in that country want all the money for themselves.

Yet I suspect TABOR has a decent chance of passing here in the state.

The main reason is that TABOR’s local supporters are given carte blanche access to the press while those who oppose it have to work outside the corporate media to explain the truth about how TABOR will make this state even more mediocre in terms of its educational funding and progress. This is why it is crucial those of us employed in higher education speak out now.

As The Daily Oklahoman laments the state’s low college graduation rate, it runs biased, one-sided stories about those right-wingers pushing TABOR. Note how this story, for example, leads with TABOR supporters criticizing anyone who opposes them and gives the opposition view only in the last three paragraphs. This is immoral. The newspaper could at the very least run thorough and significant commentary from the opposition, which, in the past, has included some college presidents.

But right-wing fanatics obviously carry more weight in the newspaper’s pages than, say, University of Oklahoma President David Boren.

So, with that in mind, it is immoral as well for those of us in higher education to remain silent on such an important issue, which will ultimately impact thousands upon thousands of Oklahoma college students. If you care about students, about the mission of higher education, then you need to speak out.

Here are some facts about what TABOR has done to higher education in Colorado:

If current funding trends continue, there will be absolutely NO state funding for higher education in Colorado in ten years.

Overall, funding for higher education in Colorado has fallen from 19% to 11% of the total state budget.

The University of Colorado had its state funding cut in half since TABOR. (What do you think would happen to universities like the University of Oklahoma or the University of Central Oklahoma under a TABOR program? It would be exactly the same.)

College tuition in Colorado has skyrocketed, and thus those students from middle-class and lower-income families are hurt the most. The rate of college attendance has dropped in the state.

Here are some thoughts about TABOR from University of Colorado-Boulder Chancellor Philip DiStefano:

"In many ways, CU-Boulder is facing one of the most challenging periods in its history. ... In fact, our very existence as a state-supported university is called into question by the fact that only 6.5 percent of our budget is supported by state tax dollars – and that amount is all but certain to decline further if voters do not grant a reprieve to TABOR spending limits in the November election."

So what would it mean to Oklahomans if both the University of Oklahoma and Oklahoma State University were private universities? It would mean that only wealthy people, for the most part, would have access to these institutions.

As we argue against TABOR, we must remind everyone that Oklahoma already has a constitutional amendment that severely limits the legislature’s ability to raise taxes. In addition, the state government’s budget growth has grown in line with the economy’s growth over the last decade or so. The state cut its tax rate last year and even refunded tax money.

TABOR would do much to hurt Oklahoma in many areas besides higher education. But the state’s academics have a special moral duty to speak out against it.

If we allow the right-wing to destroy the university system of free inquiry and research and enlightenment without a fight, we disgrace these very principles.