++ AGENDA FOR THIS WEEK’S MEETING
++ ANNOUNCEMENTS
++ I’VE BEEN WARNING, THE STATE CHAMBER’S REAL AGENDA
++ THE OKLAHOMAN, THE GOOD & THE UGLY
++ OCPAC MEMBERSHIP UP-DATE
++ AGENDA FOR THIS WEEK’S MEETING
Our 12 noon luncheon for Wednesday, September 26th will be held at
Italiano’s restaurant, 4801 North Lincoln in OKC. This will be our
final week for interviewing candidates and then next week we will vote
to determine which candidates we will support. In addition we will
also vote on some issues that will become positions that OCPAC
supports for the up-coming legislative session.
++ ANNOUNCEMENTS
* TUESDAY EVENING (tonight) - BIXBY AREA - Americans for
Prosperity invites folks to attend a special Back to School movie
night to honor Dr. Milton Friedman. The event will be at the Starworld
20 Theater in Bixby, 10301 S. Memorial Dr. from 7 to 9:00 p.m. The
movie will be: School Choice Myth Busters. This film will put to rest
many of the myths used by school choice opponents. The movie is free
with popcorn and a soft drink included. Here is the catch, there is
seating for only 100 people so you “must” RSVP: http;//
mythbustersmovie.eventbrite.com/. Following the movie there will be a
panel discussion. Guest Panelists will be State Education Board Member
Bill Price, Myth Busters movie producer James Price, Representative
Jason Nelson (R-OKC) and Mark Lee Cantrell.
* THURSDAY EVENING - MOORE AREA - The Sooner Republican Assembly
will host their monthly meeting this Thursday evening at Earls Rib in
Moore. Folks are urged to gather for dinner at 6, with the speaker
beginning at 6:45 p.m. This month’s speaker will be Dr. James Taylor
(JT), founder of R.I.O.T. (Radical, Interesting, Odd but Timely). J.T.
is a conservative black minister who is also a member of the Black
Robed Regiment. He has also produced a DVD called: A PEBBLE IN YOUR
SHOE - WHY I AM A REPUBLICAN. I have known J.T. for some time now and
plan to have him speak at a future OCPAC meeting.
++ I’VE BEEN WARNING, THE STATE CHAMBER’S REAL AGENDA
I have been trying to warn folks that the State Chamber of Commerce in
on the road toward such political power as to control the state of
Oklahoma and its policies. Oklahomans for Sovereignty and Free
Enterprise www.oksafe.org posted part of a transcript on August 21st
of this year which came from recording Fred Morgan, executive director
of the Chamber and lobbyist Chad Warmington. They were speaking at a
“lunch time Legislative Wrap Up Meeting on Tuesday, July 17th of 2012,
at Northeastern State University, on the Broken Arrow Campus.
According to OKSAFE’s web-site: “Both Morgan and Warmington make
statements that left little doubt as to the Chamber’s intentions,
revealing what most in the grassroots already knew - that the Chamber
is an agenda-driven institution, single-minded in its’ efforts to
advance corporate interests only, operating virtually without
conscious and with little or no regard to principle when it comes to
policy issues.” (I might suggest labeling that as being pragmatic
without morality) “They want what business wants. Period.”
“These Chamber representatives admit they actively find, recruit, and
run the campaigns of those candidates who will vote the way the
Chamber wants them to once elected. They call these their ‘pro-
business’ candidates. (For those out there who think there is a chance
your Chamber-supported candidate will actually represent the interests
of their home district, please understand - it doesn’t work that
way.)”
“Fred Morgan, a former legislator/lobbyist, took over as Director of
the State Chamber a couple of years ago.
Morgan stated that before he came, “…we really weren’t very
politically engaged. But we know that in order to [unclear] that … we
know we need to be engaged and we need to be involved in the political
level as well. So we have engaged very heavily at the political
level. It’s a lot easier to lobby a legislator who shares your ideas,
and your goals, and who knows something about business. And Chad is
going to go through a lot of the projects, kind of sum up our
political projects.”
According to Ok-SAFE, “The Chamber doesn’t want to waste a lot of time
working with legislators who may not agree with them, so they’ve
decided it’s better to pick and run their own guys. This is called
‘being politically engaged in the process.’”
“Warmington admits, ’So we run campaigns, essentially, out of one side
of our shop.’ His power point presentation detailed the State
Chamber’s recent activities and projects on which they are focused.
Some of those activities include:
* Finding and recruiting candidates to run for office, regardless of
party affiliation
* Running campaigns, including mail pieces - positive for their pro-
business ’friends,’ and negative for their opponents, called either
’anti-business’ or ’trial lawyers’ - and radio and phone calls (live).
* Educating the candidates once elected so they’ll vote the right way,
called ’pro-business’
*Partnering with the Research Institute for Economic Development, or
RIED, a 20-year old special interest group, to rank legislators. The
annual RIED Report claims to score legislators on ’business, jobs, and
economic development’, but the criteria used to rank them is virtually
unavailable.
* The use of The Political Intelligence Report, a subscription
information site to provide ’intelligence’ to their members. The
Intelligence Report is also used to encourage or discourage campaign
contributions, among other things.
* The creation of ’We Are Watching Them’ website, for tracking votes
and detailing a ’top offenders’ list of legislators who don’t vote the
way the Chamber wants them to vote.
* The creation of the Oklahoma Civil Justice Council, an evaluation
system to criticize judges who render decisions that the Chamber’s
corporate members don’t agree with. The criteria is based on whether
the judge’s decision ’expanded or contracted’ liability for
businesses. This recently-created Council has been criticized by Rep.
John Bennett, a conservative legislator, who pointed out that judges
are supposed to be impartial. Bennett in turn is being targeted by
the State Chamber for being ’anti-business.’”
OKSAFE goes on to say: “Warmington was quite enthusiastic over the
Chamber’s agenda - and without conscious, it seems, when it comes to
how the Chamber conducts campaigns for their chosen candidates. He
never once mentioned the character assassination the Chamber engaged
in while ’defending’ their ’pro-business friends’ during the recent
elections. Think this didn’t happen? Just ask Pastor Paul Blair of
Edmond, OK who ran against the Chamber’s buddy Senator Clark Jolley,
or Kevin McDugle of Tulsa who took on the progressive Senator Brian
Crain in the primary elections this year. The State Chamber
demonstrated they have no scruples when it comes to getting what they
want - and removing obstacles that get in their way.” Both the audio
and transcript of that meeting are available on the OKSAFE web-site.
Following are some Chamber Meeting Quotes:
“This ain’t your granddaddy’s State Chamber.” “… we have engaged very
heavily at the political level.”
“What we decided is that we couldn’t just wait and hope and pray that
good legislators showed up at the Capitol… so we run campaigns,
essentially, out of one side of our shop… we don’t care what party
you’re from,…”
“We have our legislative agenda…. [A]nd if they’re voting against the
legislation the business community wants they you’re, you get a bad
score…”
“How do I get off your list?” And I said, “It’s very easy, just kinda
vote your way off the list… if you vote the right way, you’ll get off
the list.”
“I mean, we absolutely helped switch votes.”
“Oklahoma Civil Justice Council is not directly related to the
Legislature, it’s another project we wanted to point out. We’re doing
the same thing with Judges and we’ve caught a little bit of heat for
it. It’s a brand new project that Fred uh, has, uh, been spearheading…
And we’re going to do the same job of evaluation system on Judges and
all we’re going to judge Judges on are, do they expand or contract
liability for businesses…?”
“But part of the problem is we spend all of our time to recruit good
business candidates, we get them elected, we get them educated, we get
them to vote the right way on a bill, and then the bill goes to the
Supreme Court and gets struck down… we’ve got some work to do making
sure that the business community…understand who these Judges are…”
“Representative Bennett came out and criticized us for having the gall
to evaluate judges…”
“ So, again, this is the, the RIED Score, many of you have seen it. It
lists who got what… so again, we go back to party affiliation, we
don’t care what party you’re from - we just care that you’re voting
for business.”
Now folks this next quote, I believe from Chad, is the most revealing
of them all: “Uh, and for us, you know, political guys, you know, a
lot of times we, you know, the legislature spends a lot of time
talking about things that just don’t matter - I mean, they want to
talk about tax cuts and all that stuff… So we’re going to have to
figure out… how to help, uh, refocus maybe the legislators’ attention
on things that are actually going to create jobs, versus worrying
about tax cuts and tax credits and stuff like that.”
Between all the “uhs”, “you knows” and “I means” if you need any help
reading between the lines may I suggest the following: First off look
at the arrogance, how their attitude toward lawmakers is like subjects
to control, to pull their strings and make them dance when the Chamber
plays the music. Secondly, going back to TABOR (TAxpayers Bill Of
Rights) as well as other efforts to reduce the cost of government to
the taxpayer, I have noticed it is often the very wealthy, the State
Chamber types, who are opposed to such efforts. In fact, often times
you will find this same crowd involved in efforts to raise taxes or
fees such as the effort a few years back to increase the fee we pay
when we purchase a gallon of gas or diesel, so additional monies could
be used to re-build more roads and bridges (With the take over by the
Republicans, that is now occurring without a fee or tax increase, much
to the chagrin of Tulsa’s David Blatt and the leftist think thank he
heads up).
Why does this bunch oppose tax cuts and often times support tax or fee
increases? I believe it is primarily because of their view on
economics. Regardless of what they say, I don’t believe they are
really supporters of “free market capitalism”. Their ideology leans
more toward a belief in “fascist capitalism” and or “socialist
capitalism.” Socialist capitalism is where the government owns
businesses such as the Reed Center in MWC and its adjoining hotel and
restaurant, or the water park in Edmond, as well as the Chesapeake
Energy Arena and the Thunder’s practice facility in OKC (before the
taxpayers built the $19 million practice facility near Britton Road
and the Broadway extension which is leased for $100,000 per year which
will take 190 years for OKC to re-coup its investment, the Thunder had
its own practice facility on North Lincoln which they owned for about
3 or 4 million dollars) all owned by the city of OKC and leased
through sweet-heart deals to those who use them.
Under fascist capitalism, the government doesn’t own businesses, they
just favor or control them through regulations, subsidies, grants, tax
credits or other kick-back schemes as well as determining who gets the
approved opportunities and locations for their businesses. These are
primarily re-distribution of wealth schemes, often times re-
distributing the wealth of the middle class to the very wealthy. Free
market capitalism struggles to survive against this un-fair
competition.
Bottom line, if you are going to give away a lot of money to
businesses (hundreds of millions of dollars each year) you can NOT
allow your tax base to get too low. You must keep it sufficiently high
to have enough money to give away. This system is highly immoral and
it is a system that also may facilitate the less than the best to rise
to the top as well as creating animosities between the citizens and
competitors in business.
We all want a vibrant economy, good jobs and professions for ourselves
and our children as well as an appealing place for good people in
other states to migrate to Oklahoma. Therefore, the question is, do we
try to have a free market environment with a low tax base and minimal
regulations or do we keep a high tax base with a lot of regulations
where government, not the market is picking the winners and losers? I
believe the State Chamber’s philosophy’s is the latter, after all,
they like helping their buddies and themselves other peoples money.
With all that said, we were recently approached by the State Chamber
and asked to help with passage of State Question 766, an effort to
prevent a tax on businesses, harmful to businesses. The Chamber is
right on this one and when they are right, we will join hands with
them, but when they are wrong, we will oppose them.
++ THE OKLAHOMAN, THE GOOD & THE UGLY
Over the past few weeks I have been suggesting that the Oklahoman has
been returning to its more conservative history on the editorial
page. Actually they have been writing a lot of good columns, but
recently they really messed up. Yes, I was on vacation for 15 days,
but I eventually get caught up with the 5 newspapers I read and low
and behold, September 1st was a very ugly day for the Oklahoman’s
editorial page. The editorial in question is not long. I will put my
opinion comments in italics and in parenthesis.
“Election Message”
Taking advantage of President Barack Osama’s “you didn’t build that”
comment, Republicans repeatedly highlighted entrepreneurs and the
reality of achieving the American dream during the party’s national
convention. The national GOP clearly wants to be seen as a defender of
free markets and the ability of one man or woman with an idea to
succeed. Locally, Republican voters endorsed that message by electing
Mark McBride to a state House seat in Moore. McBride, who owns a
roofing and construction business, replaces state Rep. randy Terrill,
a Republican known for anti-business obsessions.
(First off, I am very glad Mark McBride won his race, he was also
backed by OCPAC. However, in all the years I have known Randy Terrill,
which is before he was even in the legislature, I have never known him
to have any anti-business ideas, much less anti-business obsessions.
If my memory serves me correctly, Randy was a major force in
eliminating some of the franchise taxes on small businesses and a huge
supporter of the reductions in the state income tax rates, both pro
business efforts. I suspect what the Oklahoman is talking about were
Randy’s efforts to pass HB 1804, the legislation to deal with the
invasion of illegal aliens into our state.
If the Oklahoman thinks it is pro-business to risk radically changing
our culture, eventually creating sufficient numbers of minority voters
nation wide to make sure Democrats like Obama will eventually be un-
beatable, if they are willing to sacrifice our national sovereignty
for cheap labor, then they are some sick puppies. None of those three
serious issues are pro-business in the long run and that doesn’t even
take into account the stressrd on our jobs for citizens, health care,
education, welfare or jail and prison systems that we have to deal
with today).
McBride’s runoff opponent was backed by the Sooner Tea Party, a
splinter group that (unlike the national tea party movement) tends to
view individuals’ business success as suspect or worse.
(The Sooner Tea Party probably attaches itself to candidates in many
cases without being asked and since they are a splinter group, why
even bring them up? They are ineffective and more likely to be the
kiss of death for a candidate rather than a help. I have no use for
the Sooner Tea Party or its leader Al Gerhart, but I will say this, Al
is a hard working small businessman that I have never known to be
against business success as long as those achieving success did so
according to the principles of the free market and did not break the
law to achieve their success).
McBrides win is a victory for free-market viewpoints in the Oklahoma
GOP, and a rebuke to the Occupy Wall Street-style hysteria some sought
to embed in Republican circles.”
(I am sorry, but that statement is foolish on its face. In the past I
have stated my belief that Mark’s opponent wasn’t in control of her
emotions sufficiently to be a good lawmaker. As wild as her attacks
were at some times, she wasn’t anywhere near to promoting the extreme
leftist ideas of the Occupy movement. Among all the occupy movement
stooges in Oklahoma, I doubt you could find a single person in that
effort registered as a Republican.
Randy Terrill’s political fortunes, as far as holding office again,
have probably been irreparably harmed. But, he has done much more for
the State of Oklahoma and its citizens that deserves honor than he has
done that deserves ridicule. This editorial by the Oklahoman was off
base and over the top in my opinion. Hopefully they will avoid this
kind of tripe in the future and get back to writing quality
editorials).
++ OCPAC MEMBERSHIP UP-DATE
As of last Wednesday, OCPAC has 242 dues paying members which is ahead
of last year’s membership of 217. The largest number of memberships
come from OKC, with Edmond a close second and then Tulsa is in 3rd
place. For your interest the following is a list of other towns or
cities across Oklahoma with dues paying members, they are not in any
order: Moore, Holdenville, Blanchard, Shawnee, Harrah, Calvin, Konawa,
Hooker, Seminole, Jones, Norman, Meridian, Midwest City, Duncan,
Broken Bow, Broken Arrow, Del City, Guthrie, Yukon, Ponca City,
Stratford, Alva, Lawton, Mustang, Luther, Choctaw, Newkirk,
Bartlesville, Ada, Purcell, Warr Acres, Owasso, Nichols Hills, Macomb,
Wyandotte, Sapulpa, Newcastle and Arapaho.
As you can see, we have members from the Southeast to the Panhandle
and from the Northeast to the Southwest as well as many points in-
between. OCPAC is truly a statewide organization with dues paying
members from all over that state, many of whom can seldom if ever
attend our meetings, but they know we support quality candidates from
all over the state in our effort to make Oklahoma a more conservative
state.
One of the reasons for such support, it that none of your
contributions are eaten up by staff as we are all volunteer, and very
little is spent on overhead. Yet we do the hard work of trying to
ferret out the true conservatives from the moderates or even RINO’s.
Unless you are willing to do that work for yourself, may I suggest
your support for conservatism through OCPAC. If you have not joined
OCPAC for this year, please consider doing so by Wednesday the 3rd of
October. After our members present at our meeting vote to determine
which candidates we have been interviewing are to receive our support,
we will get checks out to them with haste so they have the time to
plan on how to best use that money. Instructions on how to join are
below.
I look forward to seeing everyone this Wednesday.
Charlie Meadows
Charliemeadows7@gmail.com
++ ANNOUNCEMENTS
++ I’VE BEEN WARNING, THE STATE CHAMBER’S REAL AGENDA
++ THE OKLAHOMAN, THE GOOD & THE UGLY
++ OCPAC MEMBERSHIP UP-DATE
++ AGENDA FOR THIS WEEK’S MEETING
Our 12 noon luncheon for Wednesday, September 26th will be held at
Italiano’s restaurant, 4801 North Lincoln in OKC. This will be our
final week for interviewing candidates and then next week we will vote
to determine which candidates we will support. In addition we will
also vote on some issues that will become positions that OCPAC
supports for the up-coming legislative session.
++ ANNOUNCEMENTS
* TUESDAY EVENING (tonight) - BIXBY AREA - Americans for
Prosperity invites folks to attend a special Back to School movie
night to honor Dr. Milton Friedman. The event will be at the Starworld
20 Theater in Bixby, 10301 S. Memorial Dr. from 7 to 9:00 p.m. The
movie will be: School Choice Myth Busters. This film will put to rest
many of the myths used by school choice opponents. The movie is free
with popcorn and a soft drink included. Here is the catch, there is
seating for only 100 people so you “must” RSVP: http;//
mythbustersmovie.eventbrite.com/. Following the movie there will be a
panel discussion. Guest Panelists will be State Education Board Member
Bill Price, Myth Busters movie producer James Price, Representative
Jason Nelson (R-OKC) and Mark Lee Cantrell.
* THURSDAY EVENING - MOORE AREA - The Sooner Republican Assembly
will host their monthly meeting this Thursday evening at Earls Rib in
Moore. Folks are urged to gather for dinner at 6, with the speaker
beginning at 6:45 p.m. This month’s speaker will be Dr. James Taylor
(JT), founder of R.I.O.T. (Radical, Interesting, Odd but Timely). J.T.
is a conservative black minister who is also a member of the Black
Robed Regiment. He has also produced a DVD called: A PEBBLE IN YOUR
SHOE - WHY I AM A REPUBLICAN. I have known J.T. for some time now and
plan to have him speak at a future OCPAC meeting.
++ I’VE BEEN WARNING, THE STATE CHAMBER’S REAL AGENDA
I have been trying to warn folks that the State Chamber of Commerce in
on the road toward such political power as to control the state of
Oklahoma and its policies. Oklahomans for Sovereignty and Free
Enterprise www.oksafe.org posted part of a transcript on August 21st
of this year which came from recording Fred Morgan, executive director
of the Chamber and lobbyist Chad Warmington. They were speaking at a
“lunch time Legislative Wrap Up Meeting on Tuesday, July 17th of 2012,
at Northeastern State University, on the Broken Arrow Campus.
According to OKSAFE’s web-site: “Both Morgan and Warmington make
statements that left little doubt as to the Chamber’s intentions,
revealing what most in the grassroots already knew - that the Chamber
is an agenda-driven institution, single-minded in its’ efforts to
advance corporate interests only, operating virtually without
conscious and with little or no regard to principle when it comes to
policy issues.” (I might suggest labeling that as being pragmatic
without morality) “They want what business wants. Period.”
“These Chamber representatives admit they actively find, recruit, and
run the campaigns of those candidates who will vote the way the
Chamber wants them to once elected. They call these their ‘pro-
business’ candidates. (For those out there who think there is a chance
your Chamber-supported candidate will actually represent the interests
of their home district, please understand - it doesn’t work that
way.)”
“Fred Morgan, a former legislator/lobbyist, took over as Director of
the State Chamber a couple of years ago.
Morgan stated that before he came, “…we really weren’t very
politically engaged. But we know that in order to [unclear] that … we
know we need to be engaged and we need to be involved in the political
level as well. So we have engaged very heavily at the political
level. It’s a lot easier to lobby a legislator who shares your ideas,
and your goals, and who knows something about business. And Chad is
going to go through a lot of the projects, kind of sum up our
political projects.”
According to Ok-SAFE, “The Chamber doesn’t want to waste a lot of time
working with legislators who may not agree with them, so they’ve
decided it’s better to pick and run their own guys. This is called
‘being politically engaged in the process.’”
“Warmington admits, ’So we run campaigns, essentially, out of one side
of our shop.’ His power point presentation detailed the State
Chamber’s recent activities and projects on which they are focused.
Some of those activities include:
* Finding and recruiting candidates to run for office, regardless of
party affiliation
* Running campaigns, including mail pieces - positive for their pro-
business ’friends,’ and negative for their opponents, called either
’anti-business’ or ’trial lawyers’ - and radio and phone calls (live).
* Educating the candidates once elected so they’ll vote the right way,
called ’pro-business’
*Partnering with the Research Institute for Economic Development, or
RIED, a 20-year old special interest group, to rank legislators. The
annual RIED Report claims to score legislators on ’business, jobs, and
economic development’, but the criteria used to rank them is virtually
unavailable.
* The use of The Political Intelligence Report, a subscription
information site to provide ’intelligence’ to their members. The
Intelligence Report is also used to encourage or discourage campaign
contributions, among other things.
* The creation of ’We Are Watching Them’ website, for tracking votes
and detailing a ’top offenders’ list of legislators who don’t vote the
way the Chamber wants them to vote.
* The creation of the Oklahoma Civil Justice Council, an evaluation
system to criticize judges who render decisions that the Chamber’s
corporate members don’t agree with. The criteria is based on whether
the judge’s decision ’expanded or contracted’ liability for
businesses. This recently-created Council has been criticized by Rep.
John Bennett, a conservative legislator, who pointed out that judges
are supposed to be impartial. Bennett in turn is being targeted by
the State Chamber for being ’anti-business.’”
OKSAFE goes on to say: “Warmington was quite enthusiastic over the
Chamber’s agenda - and without conscious, it seems, when it comes to
how the Chamber conducts campaigns for their chosen candidates. He
never once mentioned the character assassination the Chamber engaged
in while ’defending’ their ’pro-business friends’ during the recent
elections. Think this didn’t happen? Just ask Pastor Paul Blair of
Edmond, OK who ran against the Chamber’s buddy Senator Clark Jolley,
or Kevin McDugle of Tulsa who took on the progressive Senator Brian
Crain in the primary elections this year. The State Chamber
demonstrated they have no scruples when it comes to getting what they
want - and removing obstacles that get in their way.” Both the audio
and transcript of that meeting are available on the OKSAFE web-site.
Following are some Chamber Meeting Quotes:
“This ain’t your granddaddy’s State Chamber.” “… we have engaged very
heavily at the political level.”
“What we decided is that we couldn’t just wait and hope and pray that
good legislators showed up at the Capitol… so we run campaigns,
essentially, out of one side of our shop… we don’t care what party
you’re from,…”
“We have our legislative agenda…. [A]nd if they’re voting against the
legislation the business community wants they you’re, you get a bad
score…”
“How do I get off your list?” And I said, “It’s very easy, just kinda
vote your way off the list… if you vote the right way, you’ll get off
the list.”
“I mean, we absolutely helped switch votes.”
“Oklahoma Civil Justice Council is not directly related to the
Legislature, it’s another project we wanted to point out. We’re doing
the same thing with Judges and we’ve caught a little bit of heat for
it. It’s a brand new project that Fred uh, has, uh, been spearheading…
And we’re going to do the same job of evaluation system on Judges and
all we’re going to judge Judges on are, do they expand or contract
liability for businesses…?”
“But part of the problem is we spend all of our time to recruit good
business candidates, we get them elected, we get them educated, we get
them to vote the right way on a bill, and then the bill goes to the
Supreme Court and gets struck down… we’ve got some work to do making
sure that the business community…understand who these Judges are…”
“Representative Bennett came out and criticized us for having the gall
to evaluate judges…”
“ So, again, this is the, the RIED Score, many of you have seen it. It
lists who got what… so again, we go back to party affiliation, we
don’t care what party you’re from - we just care that you’re voting
for business.”
Now folks this next quote, I believe from Chad, is the most revealing
of them all: “Uh, and for us, you know, political guys, you know, a
lot of times we, you know, the legislature spends a lot of time
talking about things that just don’t matter - I mean, they want to
talk about tax cuts and all that stuff… So we’re going to have to
figure out… how to help, uh, refocus maybe the legislators’ attention
on things that are actually going to create jobs, versus worrying
about tax cuts and tax credits and stuff like that.”
Between all the “uhs”, “you knows” and “I means” if you need any help
reading between the lines may I suggest the following: First off look
at the arrogance, how their attitude toward lawmakers is like subjects
to control, to pull their strings and make them dance when the Chamber
plays the music. Secondly, going back to TABOR (TAxpayers Bill Of
Rights) as well as other efforts to reduce the cost of government to
the taxpayer, I have noticed it is often the very wealthy, the State
Chamber types, who are opposed to such efforts. In fact, often times
you will find this same crowd involved in efforts to raise taxes or
fees such as the effort a few years back to increase the fee we pay
when we purchase a gallon of gas or diesel, so additional monies could
be used to re-build more roads and bridges (With the take over by the
Republicans, that is now occurring without a fee or tax increase, much
to the chagrin of Tulsa’s David Blatt and the leftist think thank he
heads up).
Why does this bunch oppose tax cuts and often times support tax or fee
increases? I believe it is primarily because of their view on
economics. Regardless of what they say, I don’t believe they are
really supporters of “free market capitalism”. Their ideology leans
more toward a belief in “fascist capitalism” and or “socialist
capitalism.” Socialist capitalism is where the government owns
businesses such as the Reed Center in MWC and its adjoining hotel and
restaurant, or the water park in Edmond, as well as the Chesapeake
Energy Arena and the Thunder’s practice facility in OKC (before the
taxpayers built the $19 million practice facility near Britton Road
and the Broadway extension which is leased for $100,000 per year which
will take 190 years for OKC to re-coup its investment, the Thunder had
its own practice facility on North Lincoln which they owned for about
3 or 4 million dollars) all owned by the city of OKC and leased
through sweet-heart deals to those who use them.
Under fascist capitalism, the government doesn’t own businesses, they
just favor or control them through regulations, subsidies, grants, tax
credits or other kick-back schemes as well as determining who gets the
approved opportunities and locations for their businesses. These are
primarily re-distribution of wealth schemes, often times re-
distributing the wealth of the middle class to the very wealthy. Free
market capitalism struggles to survive against this un-fair
competition.
Bottom line, if you are going to give away a lot of money to
businesses (hundreds of millions of dollars each year) you can NOT
allow your tax base to get too low. You must keep it sufficiently high
to have enough money to give away. This system is highly immoral and
it is a system that also may facilitate the less than the best to rise
to the top as well as creating animosities between the citizens and
competitors in business.
We all want a vibrant economy, good jobs and professions for ourselves
and our children as well as an appealing place for good people in
other states to migrate to Oklahoma. Therefore, the question is, do we
try to have a free market environment with a low tax base and minimal
regulations or do we keep a high tax base with a lot of regulations
where government, not the market is picking the winners and losers? I
believe the State Chamber’s philosophy’s is the latter, after all,
they like helping their buddies and themselves other peoples money.
With all that said, we were recently approached by the State Chamber
and asked to help with passage of State Question 766, an effort to
prevent a tax on businesses, harmful to businesses. The Chamber is
right on this one and when they are right, we will join hands with
them, but when they are wrong, we will oppose them.
++ THE OKLAHOMAN, THE GOOD & THE UGLY
Over the past few weeks I have been suggesting that the Oklahoman has
been returning to its more conservative history on the editorial
page. Actually they have been writing a lot of good columns, but
recently they really messed up. Yes, I was on vacation for 15 days,
but I eventually get caught up with the 5 newspapers I read and low
and behold, September 1st was a very ugly day for the Oklahoman’s
editorial page. The editorial in question is not long. I will put my
opinion comments in italics and in parenthesis.
“Election Message”
Taking advantage of President Barack Osama’s “you didn’t build that”
comment, Republicans repeatedly highlighted entrepreneurs and the
reality of achieving the American dream during the party’s national
convention. The national GOP clearly wants to be seen as a defender of
free markets and the ability of one man or woman with an idea to
succeed. Locally, Republican voters endorsed that message by electing
Mark McBride to a state House seat in Moore. McBride, who owns a
roofing and construction business, replaces state Rep. randy Terrill,
a Republican known for anti-business obsessions.
(First off, I am very glad Mark McBride won his race, he was also
backed by OCPAC. However, in all the years I have known Randy Terrill,
which is before he was even in the legislature, I have never known him
to have any anti-business ideas, much less anti-business obsessions.
If my memory serves me correctly, Randy was a major force in
eliminating some of the franchise taxes on small businesses and a huge
supporter of the reductions in the state income tax rates, both pro
business efforts. I suspect what the Oklahoman is talking about were
Randy’s efforts to pass HB 1804, the legislation to deal with the
invasion of illegal aliens into our state.
If the Oklahoman thinks it is pro-business to risk radically changing
our culture, eventually creating sufficient numbers of minority voters
nation wide to make sure Democrats like Obama will eventually be un-
beatable, if they are willing to sacrifice our national sovereignty
for cheap labor, then they are some sick puppies. None of those three
serious issues are pro-business in the long run and that doesn’t even
take into account the stressrd on our jobs for citizens, health care,
education, welfare or jail and prison systems that we have to deal
with today).
McBride’s runoff opponent was backed by the Sooner Tea Party, a
splinter group that (unlike the national tea party movement) tends to
view individuals’ business success as suspect or worse.
(The Sooner Tea Party probably attaches itself to candidates in many
cases without being asked and since they are a splinter group, why
even bring them up? They are ineffective and more likely to be the
kiss of death for a candidate rather than a help. I have no use for
the Sooner Tea Party or its leader Al Gerhart, but I will say this, Al
is a hard working small businessman that I have never known to be
against business success as long as those achieving success did so
according to the principles of the free market and did not break the
law to achieve their success).
McBrides win is a victory for free-market viewpoints in the Oklahoma
GOP, and a rebuke to the Occupy Wall Street-style hysteria some sought
to embed in Republican circles.”
(I am sorry, but that statement is foolish on its face. In the past I
have stated my belief that Mark’s opponent wasn’t in control of her
emotions sufficiently to be a good lawmaker. As wild as her attacks
were at some times, she wasn’t anywhere near to promoting the extreme
leftist ideas of the Occupy movement. Among all the occupy movement
stooges in Oklahoma, I doubt you could find a single person in that
effort registered as a Republican.
Randy Terrill’s political fortunes, as far as holding office again,
have probably been irreparably harmed. But, he has done much more for
the State of Oklahoma and its citizens that deserves honor than he has
done that deserves ridicule. This editorial by the Oklahoman was off
base and over the top in my opinion. Hopefully they will avoid this
kind of tripe in the future and get back to writing quality
editorials).
++ OCPAC MEMBERSHIP UP-DATE
As of last Wednesday, OCPAC has 242 dues paying members which is ahead
of last year’s membership of 217. The largest number of memberships
come from OKC, with Edmond a close second and then Tulsa is in 3rd
place. For your interest the following is a list of other towns or
cities across Oklahoma with dues paying members, they are not in any
order: Moore, Holdenville, Blanchard, Shawnee, Harrah, Calvin, Konawa,
Hooker, Seminole, Jones, Norman, Meridian, Midwest City, Duncan,
Broken Bow, Broken Arrow, Del City, Guthrie, Yukon, Ponca City,
Stratford, Alva, Lawton, Mustang, Luther, Choctaw, Newkirk,
Bartlesville, Ada, Purcell, Warr Acres, Owasso, Nichols Hills, Macomb,
Wyandotte, Sapulpa, Newcastle and Arapaho.
As you can see, we have members from the Southeast to the Panhandle
and from the Northeast to the Southwest as well as many points in-
between. OCPAC is truly a statewide organization with dues paying
members from all over that state, many of whom can seldom if ever
attend our meetings, but they know we support quality candidates from
all over the state in our effort to make Oklahoma a more conservative
state.
One of the reasons for such support, it that none of your
contributions are eaten up by staff as we are all volunteer, and very
little is spent on overhead. Yet we do the hard work of trying to
ferret out the true conservatives from the moderates or even RINO’s.
Unless you are willing to do that work for yourself, may I suggest
your support for conservatism through OCPAC. If you have not joined
OCPAC for this year, please consider doing so by Wednesday the 3rd of
October. After our members present at our meeting vote to determine
which candidates we have been interviewing are to receive our support,
we will get checks out to them with haste so they have the time to
plan on how to best use that money. Instructions on how to join are
below.
I look forward to seeing everyone this Wednesday.
Charlie Meadows
Charliemeadows7@gmail.com
