TAX RE-STRUCTURE, GREAT NEWS, MAYBE

++ AGENDA FOR THIS WEEK’S MEETING
++ ANNOUNCEMENTS
++ TAX RE-STRUCTURE, GREAT NEWS, MAYBE
++ HB 1804 GETS APPROVAL OF STATE SUPREME COURT
++ OCPAC MEMBERSHIP UP-DATE

++ AGENDA FOR THIS WEEK’S MEETING

Our 12 noon luncheon for Wednesday, June 22nd will be held at
Italiano’ restaurant, 4801 North Lincoln in OKC. This week the owners
of the Oklahoma Constitution Newspaper will present to our members the
final bills for consideration to make up this year’s Conservative
Index. All of our dues paying members as of 06-08-11 and who are
present at our meeting will be given a ballot to vote for the most
important bills to be used in this year’s index. Our debate on the
bills presented to us will center around those bills that are the most
significant to be used. This will be the 33rd year for the
Conservative Index. Our members have served as somewhat of a focus
group to determine the most important ones for the past 12 to 14
years.

++ ANNOUNCEMENTS

* TUESDAY EVENING - TULSA AREA - Tuesday evening, June 21st the
Tulsa Area Republican Assembly will have Mayor Dewey Bartlett as their
speaker. The location is the Golden Corral, 71st street and Mingo,
with folks gathering at 6 for dinner and the formal meeting will begin
at 7:00 p.m.. The club recently had a speaker that wanted to oust
Mayor Bartlett. During this meeting the Mayor will have a chance to
tell of any positive changes and make a case for his efforts.

* TUESDAY MORNING - OKC AREA - I mentioned in last week’s e-mail
the lawsuit filed by Oklahoma’s taxpayer watch-dog, Jerry Fent. Mr.
Fent is suing Mary Fallin, Governor of the State of Oklahoma, et al,
over the unconstitutional diversion of funds intended for roads and
bridges to other uses. Oral arguments will be presented to a Referee
in the State Supreme Court Chamber at the Capitol this Thursday, June
21st at 10:30 a.m.

Republicans need their hands slapped for continuing the same kind of
shell games played by the Democrats when they were in power. I know
its late notice, but if you care about good government and have some
time this Today, please attend this meeting to show support for Mr.
Fent and the Constitutional governance of Oklahoma.

* THURSDAY EVENING - OKC & EDMOND - Members of the group
Governing Edmond Locally (GEL) will meet, 7:00 p.m., at Molly Jenkins’
conference room, 10802 Quail Plaza Dr. in OKC. This group has done an
excellent job of educating citizens as well as folks in authority
regarding the U.N.’s Agenda 21 and its sustainability movement. If you
want to educate yourself on this issue and make a difference, please
attend this meeting. This past Wednesday Glen Beck did a program on
this issue which will give a huge boost to groups like GEL.

* JULY 28TH & 29TH - CENTRAL OKLAHOMA - This is the first
announcement regarding this Year’s Reclaiming America for Christ
Conference to be held on the above dates at Trinity Baptist Church in
Yukon. Session #1 will be from 6:15 until 10:00 p.m. on Thursday night
the 28th. Session #2 will be held Friday afternoon the 29th from 1:30
p.m. until 5:00 p.m. and session #3 will be held from 6:15 until 10:00
p.m.

Keynote speakers this year will be Dr. Bob Cornuke, President of the
Bible Archaeology, Search & Exploration (BASE) Institute and Dr. G.
Thomas Sharp, President of Creation Research Institute. Also speaking
this year will be pastor Dan Fisher, pastor Paul Blair, Matt Barber of
the Liberty Counsel legal ministry, Congressman James Lankford,
Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, Oklahoma State Representative
Sally Kern and Jenni White, President of Restore Oklahoma Public
Education (ROPE).

Please put this on your calendar for now. I will give more details as
time gets closer. I believe this will be the 6th year for these
outstanding conferences. They have come a long way from the first year
with a couple hundred in attendance to last year’s conference of over
3,000. There is no charge to attend, but a love offering will be
taken. For more information log on to www.ra4c.org or call (405) 796-
PRAY.

Let me urge folks to download a flyer from the web-site to give to
your pastor and others. The only chance America has to return to its
greatness is for a revival within the Christian church, where its
pastors preach a Biblical gospel and lead their congregations into the
knowledge and action in the cultural war of which we are embroiled.

++ TAX RE-STRUCTURE, GREAT NEWS, MAYBE

State Representative David Dank is working on re-structuring our tax
system and this past week Governor Fallin, while in Lawton, announced
her desire to eliminate the personal income tax and through re-
structure still have the ability to fund the proper functions of
government. When pressed by a reporter, she indicated she didn’t know
how to accomplish that task but was committed to it.

Let me suggest, we ought to set a goal of what kind of economy we want
in Oklahoma, and then set a strategy to accomplish such. One important
principle to understand is the concept that there are two sides of an
economy from which government derives its needed revenues. First there
is the production side of the economy with government getting revenues
by taxing corporate income, personal income, capitol gains and any
kind of taxes or fees on businesses, such as a franchise tax. Second,
there is the consumption side of the economy with government getting
revenues from sales taxes, or fees on activities.

There is an old adage that says: “whatever you tax, you get less of
it.” With that in mind, it would be foolish to tax the production side
of our economy as we don’t want less production of products and
services, as growth in those areas create jobs and higher wages.

Therefore, state government (and federal as well) need to derive their
NECESSARY revenues from the consumptive side our economy. There are 2
different ways to eliminate all personal and corporate income taxes,
as well as other business taxes. We could take the former Governor
Frank Keating approach which was very unpopular at the time, where
Frank wanted to shift taxation from production side of the economy to
the consumption side by expanding sales taxes to services, such as
your barber, hair stylist, attorney services, window cleaning
services, plumber, electrician and so on. Of course the trade off was
that we would no longer have a state or corporate income tax. His goal
was to be revenue neutral.

This re-structuring would allow businesses to lower the price of their
goods, thus making them more competitive in a national and global
market place. A lower cost of doing business in Oklahoma would
encourage more businesses to locate here or current businesses to
expand their operations as well as stay in Oklahoma rather then re-
locate to Texas (just last week we had another business located in
Tulsa, announce they would be moving to Dallas). Please remember,
businesses consider taxes as overhead and they build the cost of that
overhead into their pricing, thus it is the consumers who pay those
taxes. While this revenue neutral tax shift would be better than what
we have now, there is a better way.

The best way to accomplish the re-structure is to reduce government
spending and broaden the tax base by re-examining some of the sales
tax exemptions granted by the legislature in recent years. When
reducing the size and cost of government, there is a temptation to use
those savings for other programs or an expansion of existing programs.
The goal must be to use the savings as an off-set for the purpose of
reducing income and business taxes.

Areas to cut government spending would be on many of the business
subsidy programs, such as Oklahoma’s Quality Jobs Act and the
Governor’s new closing fund (while it was created this year, it has no
money in it as yet). In the competition for new businesses, we would
lose this incentive, but gain another by removing corporate taxes,
franchise taxes, personal income taxes and capitol gains taxes. I
would remove these taxes in this order for maximum benefit to creating
an environment for businesses to flourish in Oklahoma.

Over the past several years, the legislature has continued to add to
the number of things exempted from sales taxes. Every sales tax
exemption makes it more difficult to cut income taxes as government
must get its necessary revenues from some where. Without looking at
the complete list of recent sales tax exemptions, I would only keep 2.
I would keep the sales tax exemption on prescription drugs (some of
these are really expensive and many have a challenge in affording the
drug, let alone with a huge sales tax added on. I would also keep the
sales tax exemption on tickets for national championship or regional
tournaments held in Oklahoma. If a sales tax is the determining factor
as to where such are played, we will make up any lost money on tickets
with greater spending in our restaurants, motels and general shopping.

On the other hand, I would repeal the sales tax exemption on the sale
of tickets for professional sporting events (such as tickets to
Thunder games) and keep the sales tax on groceries. For the very poor,
this is just about the only direct tax they pay and it is very
important for them to keep some skin in the game. In addition, with
growth in the economy more people will be working, spending money and
thus paying additional sales taxes. Should the oil and gas industry
increased the production in the state, more gross production taxes (a
type of consumer tax) will increase the flow of revenues to
government. Those increased funds should be used for repairs to state
property and salary increases when and where needed.

I would suggest a comprehensive plan is vital. Hopefully
Representative Dank and other will craft a good overall plan.

++ HB 1804 GETS APPROVAL OF STATE SUPREME COURT

Congratulations to Representative Randy Terrill (R-Moore) as this past
week the State Supreme Court up-held the majority of the content of
H.B. 1804 (the law passed 3 or 4 years ago to deal with the problems
created by illegal aliens). Terrill was the brilliant author of the
legislation which is complex and thorough. The one part they did
declare went too far was the presumption that illegals would be a
flight risk and therefore they would be automatically denied bond. I
believe they are a flight risk and every illegal alien that flees and
commits another crime will be upon the judge that sets bond as well as
the State Supreme Court Justices.

There is more to be done legislatively on the issue of illegal aliens.
Hopefully Terrill, Senator Shortey and others can have future success
in those efforts. Probably the most important need now is for law
enforcement to actually enforce the laws already on the books in this
regard.

++ OCPAC MEMBERSHIP UP-DATE

We had 9 new memberships come in over the past week. That now brings
our total for the year to 217 dues paying members. I bring this up as
we are now tied with our all time record for memberships in a non-
election year. This is how we build our war chest to elect
conservative candidates, support conservative lawmakers in their re-
election bids and hold those RINOs accountable. To join, please fill
out the information below and mail it to us with your check or money
order. Thanks so much to everyone for your support.

I look forward to seeing everyone this Wednesday.

Charlie Meadows
Charliemeadows7@gmail.com