Oklahoma Needs Improved Tax System

Taxing Issues

The OK Policy Blog has an interesting post about bringing fairness to the Oklahoma tax system.

The blog, which is part of the Oklahoma Policy Institute, published a graph that shows how tax percentages decrease as people make more income. For example, those in Oklahoma making $12,000 or less annually pay 12 percent of their income in taxes while those making $250,00 or more annually only pay 8 percent.

According to the blog, OK Policy will soon launch OK Policy Online Guide to Oklahoma Budget and Taxes that deals with, among other issues, taxes. The blog argues:

As much as we argue about taxes, most of us don’t think poor people should pay more in taxes than rich, but that’s how we’ve set up the system in Oklahoma. The Guide does not make recommendations or demands, except to urge we get to work on the problem. It offers a range of options for consideration.

Those opposed to changing the system argue that high income earners pay more in taxes overall and that changing the system could hurt the state in efforts to attract highly-skilled and educated workers. But the bottom line is that the wealthy have all the money. The current wealth disparity in the country, which grew during former President George Bush’s years in office, is simply not sustainable. A small increase in taxes on the wealthiest Oklahomans makes sense, especially given the state’s budget problems.

The state’s tax system needs improvement. Check out the OK Policy Blog for its suggestions.

Corporate Media Shows True Colors

One of the great myths of our time, consistently regurgitated by the right-wing haters on talk radio, is that the media is inherently liberal. This is simply not true. The corporate media, first and foremost, serves its own corporate interests at any expense, including truth.

Take The Washington Post, for example. It recently fired its popular blogger Dan Froomkin, who wrote White House Watch for the newspaper. Froomkin was highly critical of the Bush administration and was considered “liberal” by some people. Yet he also criticized President Barack Obama's administration. Froomkin’s posts were about truth, about what is real, not ideology, and many times that meant he criticized the right-wing’s extreme agenda. But truth and holding politicians accountable are not a part of the establishment media these days.

Fortunately, Froomkin landed on his feet at the Huffington Post.

Meanwhile, word leaked out about some fancy dinners Post publisher Katherine Weymouth planned to have at her house. Lobbyists and trade associations would get the chance to mingle with Post staff and key political operatives for fees ranging up to $25,000. The dinner plans were canceled after an uproar about the basic ethics of the situation.

So let’s see. The Post fires it best, liberal commentator right around the time it offers up some “pay-to-play” access to lobbyists, and yet the right-wing howls about the liberal media.

The larger story, of course, is the general decline of the corporate media, and its predictable missteps as the world turns away from its biased, boring rhetorical frames that support the right-wing’s extreme agenda.