Small: Setting Oklahoma on path to post-pandemic growth

Setting Oklahoma on path to post-pandemic growth By Jonathan Small COVID rates have plunged in the past month and the worst may be behind us. Now policymakers should adopt significant reforms to allow Oklahoma to grow and thrive in the pandemic’s aftermath. At the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs, we’ve released a new study that provides a blueprint. It has three major planks: eliminate the personal income tax, reform our state’s dysfunctional regulatory system, and put parents in charge of education with a universal Education Savings Account. When it comes to taxation, the old adage holds true: If you want less of something, tax it more. Given that the income tax is a penalty on earnings—from work, investment, and risk taking—that means our state discourages job growth with the income tax. It doesn’t have to be that way. If policymakers reduce Oklahoma’s income tax to zero and offset that change by broadening the sales tax and making sales tax rate adjustments (if policymakers want a revenue-neutral reform), our estimates show those changes would rapidly increase the state’s GDP by almost 3% and have a positive GDP growth impact of around a quarter-percent per year. Over 10 years’ time, Oklahoma’s GDP would increase by more than $13 billion, or more than 100,000 jobs. Read more » by Jamison Faught - March 04, 2022 at 12:46PM

Small: Setting Oklahoma on path to post-pandemic growth Click the title to read the entire article at Muskogee Politico