Rally for Education-Parents Guide part 2

One of the reasons that keeps being repeated by some for not increasing funds to education is that there is less money than in previous years.  In the same breathe Governor Fallin proposes more tax cuts.  This just does not make sense to most people.

Why would you say there is not enough money then turn around and promise a tax cut?  Don't get me wrong, I would love to pay less in taxes, but sometimes we need to hold off on the cuts.

I would like to offer a possibility for generating some revenue that can have a great impact on our economy.  Currently Oklahoma offers tax incentives for horizontal and deep well drilling.  In case you are unaware, this is a type of drilling for natural gas that is done in three key states.  Oklahoma is one of those three states.  The process involves drilling deep wells, then turning and drilling horizontally in order to tap into larger pockets of natural gas.  Of the three states, Oklahoma offers the best incentives for companies.  Which should mean we have the greatest amount of drilling.

Sadly we don't.  The state that has the greatest amount of drilling out of the three states is the state that charges companies the most in taxes.  I am not saying we should charge as much as they do, but we can certainly increase how much we charge (I believe we currently charge 1% and North Dakota charges 15% and has the most drilling).  This could mean an increase of over $300,000,000 in revenue for the state.

I am almost positive the politicians have been told that drilling will decrease if the tax rate increases.  We know that isn't true because we have a perfect example of the opposite taking place.  Why should politicians allow this untapped resource to slide by us?  We need to let them know how we feel about it.

In a time when costs are increasing for schools, why are we cutting taxes and decreasing funding for schools.  This doubles the impact on the school and prevents them from providing services to our students.  Please do your part to support our students.