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present to the entire council.
Edmond Sun - 02/21/2018
The Kate Turner, public relations offi- Tuesday Night Live, which raised
council of 29 students then reach- cer.
Edmondson calls for unity, reform
BY JAMES COBURN
THE EDMOND SUN
People are ready for a
change, Drew Edmondson
said of what he hears on
the campaign trail for
Governor.
“That is not just
Democrats, but I hear
from registered
Republicans,” said
Edmondson, D-Oklahoma
City.
His campaign polling
shows that more than half
of registered Republicans
are not satisfied with the
direction state govern-
ment has taken in the last
seven-plus years, the for-
mer state Attorney
General said.
“I’m running because of
the sad state that
Oklahoma’s in right now,”
he said.
Income investment in
business improve profits,
Edmondson explained.
Business understands
how to invest for profit,
but most state legislators
think the the state can cre-
ate income by cutting its
income, he said.
“It’s never happened
and it never will happen,”
Edmondson said.
If state government does
not invest in education,
health and mental health,
transportation and correc-
tions, and the other needs
of people, then it will not
attract industry or help
existing businesses to
grow, Edmondson said.
“I would restore the
gross production tax to 7
percent where it was. It
was reduced to encourage
what was at the time a rel-
atively new technology —
Guthrie man dies in Sunday
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February 23, 2018 9:58 am (GMT +6:00)
tant than the grand total.”
Copy Reduced to 98% from original to fit letter page
horizontal drilling and
hydraulic fracturing,”
Edmondson said. “The
experiment worked. It’s
now the way they do busi-
ness. They’re making bil-
lions of dollars. By doing it
that way, they no longer
need a state subsidy.”
A $1.50
additional
cigarette tax
would be nec-
essary even
without a
state budget
problem, he
Edmondson continued.
Smoking rates
would decline if the exist-
ing tax is sufficiently
raised, Edmondson noted.
However, he said the capi-
tal gains tax has outlived
its usefulness. He said the
commission that was
looking at tax incentives
stated that over a five-year
period, the capital gains
tax increased revenues by
more than $6 million
through new jobs and
economic development.
“But it cost over $465
million of revenue. I don’t
think that is a good trade-
off,” Edmondson said.
The state cannot afford
to remain 49th or 50th in
per-pupil expenditures or
teachers’ salaries and
expect out-of-state corpo-
rations to bring their cor-
porations to Oklahoma,
he continued.
Appropriations to higher
education have declined
from 70 percent of higher
education’s budget to 30
percent. This has occurred
for longer than seven
years, he said.
“The difference has
been made up by tuition
more than $1,500; the Powder Puff
increases which ultimately
are going to price some
kids out of college,”
Edmondson continued. “I
think that’s the wrong
direction to go. I think
appropriated dollars to
our colleges and universi-
ties need to be increased
to make up more of the
mix of funding for those
institutions.”
Edmondson supports
bringing more economic
opportunity to rural
Oklahoma by forming vol-
untary partnerships of
industrial districts within
rural industrial districts,
he said. Major urban areas
including Oklahoma City,
Edmond and Tulsa are
doing a good job of indus-
trial recruitment,
Edmondson said. The
state Department of
Commerce needs to do
the same job for rural
Oklahoma, he added.
It has been counter-
productive to take $500
million a year out of the
highway department’s
budget to help fill a billion
dollar budget hole two
years in a row,
Edmondson said. ODOT’s
eight-year plan has
become a 10-year plan,
Edmondson said. County
government has been
robbed of its road and
highway money as well,
he said.
The Oklahoma
Department of
Corrections reports that
as of Feb. 14, ODOC had
27,178 people incarcerat-
ed, and 958 awaiting
transfer from county jails.
34,567 were under com-
munity supervision. State
institutions were at 113-
For more information
Project31 call 405-503-8427.
percent capacity. In 2017
Gov. Mary Fallin said the
state’s highest ranking of
women incarcerated in
the U.S. is a dubious
honor. The state ranks
second for male incarcer-
ation.
Edmondson said recent
drug law changes by two
state questions make
simple possession of
drugs a misdemeanor —
even a second or third
offense.
“So people’s whose
offense that is the simple
possession of marijuana
are not going to be prison
eligible,” he said. “Now
possession with intent or
actual distribution —
that’s another matter. It’s
the DA’s discretion as to
whether to file that as a
felony.”
Edmondson said such
measures will eventually
help reduce the prison
population. He said
adopting the Department
of Mental Health Smart
on Crime proposal to
place drug/alcohol
offenders in mental
health treatment facilities
would help a great deal
more. DA’s and judges
would have an alternative
to incarceration.
“It is not only more effi-
cient and effective, but
also less expensive,”
about
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Edmondson said.
Oklahoma’s ills are
man-made by decisions
implemented over the
years that have impacted
the state’s ability to fund
education and to have a
budget gap, he said.
“They can be fixed.
That’s the good news
about the future of going
forward,” he said.
Edmondson pointed
out that state legislators
need to come to a meet-
ing of the minds, similar
to how it was in the
1970s-80s. Edmondson
served in the Legislature
in the 1970s. His room-
mate was a Republican.
There was a collegiality
lost today when the
minority party were co-
chairs of committees,
Edmondson recalled.
“I’d like to work on
restoring that,”
Edmondson said.
He would open the
Governor’s Mansion as a
venue for members of
both parties to come to
after work and commu-
nicate in a relaxed envi-
ronment. They would
not be locked-in by their
respective leadership of
both parties that they
might not agree with, he
said.
“I’ll be right with
them,” he said.
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