...Ah, nothing smells a good as the smell of roasting RINOs on a crisp fall morning!
AFTER YEARS OF MISMANAGEMENT AND OVER SPENDING THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE DARES TO TELL THE CITIZENS THAT WE SHOULD ACCEPT THE TAX HIKE AND NOT COMPLAIN ABOUT IT
THE WATCHMAN
Here we are in November of 2017 and the state still hasn't figured out how to plug the hole in their budget. We find it rather remarkable that those who chose to fill the ranks of leadership in the state of Oklahoma can remain so inept at doing their jobs. We don't just mean our legislator's either. We are speaking of the lack of leadership from the Governor, Mary Fallin. This has truly turned into a state of we the unwilling led by the unqualified to do the unnecessary for the ungrateful. It is high time that you stop refunding your corporate donors and work for the people of Oklahoma for a change.
We all know that the state government is being run by the Republican Party. They control all of the state wide offices and a majority in the House and Senate. The Republican Party has always alleged to have stood for smaller government and less regulation. We ask why have the last eight years seen a continuous growth in both the size in government and the regulations imposed on businesses. What ever happened to the Republican Party Platform?
They have known since the end of the regular session that there was a very good chance of them being called back into a special session to fill a hole in the budget. After a caucus meeting held on August 4, 2017 House Speaker McCall was saying there were a lot of options to fill the funding gap. You can read all about it here . He failed to get into any specifics but he did say cutting the budgets any further was not an option. There was no mention of personnel cuts from the over bloated agencies within the state.
We next went to www.ok.gov to look at his official biography page here There wasn't a lot of information on this page however we did find something we thought was unusual. We would like to know how an individual with only two years of experience as a legislator managed to become the Speaker of the House. This does explain his complete lack of leadership and inability to compromise though.
The next article of interest we found was this There was nothing new here. It did go into his education background and about his wife and children. They haven't been involved in this and we won't bring them up again.
The next article we found was this . There is a lot of good information here but it also raises a lot of questions. The biggest question of all is why did the spend so much time making proclamations and dedications of highways to individuals during the regular session that they failed to complete the most important part of their job? Nothing should be addressed in either chamber until such time as a budget is passed. It almost seems like that once they assume office that they forget one of the most important items that got them there, COMMON SENSE.
We next went to www.votesmart.org to see what information they had available on Speaker McCall. Here is what we found This does tell us how he made such a rapid advancement to the top of the House of Representatives though. He's a Board Member of the Oklahoma State Chamber of Commerce. That is why there will never be a piece of Conservative legislation passed out of the House. He has been bought and paid for by the Oklahoma State Chamber of Commerce. At that point Votesmart's computers went down and we were unable to obtain any additional information from them.
The next article of interest we found was this This article was dated October 25, 2017. The lack of decorum is very evident but so are the frustration and the intent of the Speaker. The Speaker clearly stated that he would put the taxes levied on the oil and gas companies. The Speaker's intent was to pass the legislation raising all the taxes and then putting the oil and gas tax up for a separate vote. He wanted to do it that way so the members could vote it down and protect the tax credits handed out to the oil and gas companies. He knew the raising of the taxes on the oil and gas industry would never pass as a standalone bill. That industry donates too much money for their campaigns.
We then found this article . Once again the Speaker blamed the Democrats for this not passing. Well Mr. Speaker they aren't exactly stupid you know. All you had to do was to include the one item they were asking for in your tax proposal and it might have passed. It should be pointed out that the longer you keep going on about raising taxes the fewer Republicans are voting on your side of the fence. They all know that voting to raise taxes this late in the year is political suicide.
There's been a lot of angst against a state Representative lately because he referred to the State Agencies as terrorist. It's not just the State Agencies who rule by fear. We found this article that indicates the style of leadership that is used by the Speaker of the House and his leadership team. We would put his leadership style in par with that of Pho Pot of the Kmer Rouge, Mao Tse Tong of China and even Kim Jung-Un of North Korea. He has basically built himself a dictatorship in the House of Representatives.
The next article of interest we found was this . This is a list of every bill he authored or co-sponsored in the last session. You'll have to go into the legislature are at www.Ok.gov and find the bills to find the results and how they effected the citizens of Oklahoma. As an example HB9999 actually doesn't exist. It is in fact attest page.
The next article of interest we found was this We would encourage you to open this link and read the article for yourself. This is a clear indication that an agenda had been established and the bills to implement that agenda were ready to go before Governor Fallin called for the Special Session. Sadly it appears that only a handful of people were aware of this before the special session was called. It might have helped if the Speaker and the Governor would have had input from the minority party. This is another glaring lack of leadership experience by both the Governor and the Speaker of the House.
Then we found this article. This is another one of the fear and separation techniques that they are using against the citizens and legislative members of the State of Oklahoma. The real terror hear is that the director of Mental Health is only qualified as a case worker and doesn't have a single member on her senior staff qualified to handle mental health issues. She also sold off all but just over 300 beds for mental health patients to private contractors. Because of that most of our mentally ill end up being warehoused in prisons because the justice system has no other choice.
The next article we found was this This article is undated. It too shows that there were numerous bills ready to go before the Governor ever called a special session. Maybe if they had paid more attention to this instead of naming bridges and overpasses we wouldn't be in this possession right now.
The next article of interest we found was this Mr. McCall, like all the other legislators, must make a living outside of their duties at the State Capitol. This is one of the firms he is associated with in making a living. We cannot and will not find any fault with that.
The next article of interest we found was this. We urge you to open this link and read the article for yourself. You will learn a lot about the reason that the state is in a financial mess and why SQ 640 which was passed in the 1990's has worked for the citizens. You'll also learn why we the people need to take all tax raising authority away from the legislature and put it to a vote of the people.
The next article we found was this . The man who tapped the state's rainy day fund without seeking the approval of anyone, Secretary Preston Doerflinger, had this to say about the legislatures plans to fund state agencies: "Perpetuating the theory that providing a small amount of funding to help agencies with the promise we can come back during regular session blatantly disregards the balanced budget requirement set in our constitution." We don't often agree with drunks, but in this case he is correct. There is one small thing that he is missing. The affected agencies have already established a plan for unpaid furloughs to be able to make the budget. That would bring the budget into balance.
To make matters worse, the Secretary of Health resigned this last week. He is to be replaced by Preston Doerflinger. Stand by for some major disasters. They just put a man in need of an alcohol rehab center himself in charge of them all in this state.
We then found this article Finally two Republican Representatives have taken their fight to the Governor. These two men have asked the Governor to abandon her drive for tax increases and instead focus on inefficiencies in state government. We know exactly where to start. She could start by cutting some of the bloat in personnel in the government. That would be getting back to the party platform.
What we are witnessing is the mass destruction of the Republican Party in Oklahoma. The Oklahoma State Chamber of Commerce now has control over both chambers of the legislature. We the people no longer matter to most of them. We call on those legislators that still feel they represent the people they were elected to serve to call for a vote of no confidence for the Speaker of the House, the president pro-tem of the Senate and the Governor. It is clear that under their leadership we are being led down the path of total destruction.
No comments:
Post a Comment