Step Up Oklahoma exposes own hypocrisy in letter to Wind Coalition

There's a dustup going on between Step Up Oklahoma, the group pushing $750M in new taxes, and The Wind Coalition, the group advocating for the wind energy industry. Step Up accuses the Wind Coalition of undermining their efforts to raise taxes on Oklahomans, while the Wind Coalition thinks Step Up is unfairly targeting them in their tax hike plan in favor of the oil and gas industry.

In an email to the Wind Coalition, Step Up Oklahoma spokesman Glenn Coffee (former Senate Pro Tem and Secretary of State) made this comment: "To date, we have not received anything that addresses the need for new recurring revenue. Instead, you ignored our request, proffering unworkable proposals meant to reduce local property taxes and shift even more tax burden on the backs of Oklahoma residential utility consumers and other industries. [emphasis mine]" (The Wind Coalition responded with their own letter, which can be viewed here.)

You don't say?

Meanwhile, the backbone of the Step Up Oklahoma plan is to place a burden of $571.2M in new taxes directly onto the backs of Oklahoma consumers and individual taxpayers, with an additional $156.5M being taken from the energy sector (oil/gas and wind) and $22M from expanding gambling (like we need more gambling in Oklahoma to devastate families).

Hypocrisy, much?


BONUS - here as some recent articles on the Fallin/Step Up tax hikes from Bloggers Organized for Oklahoma Taxpayers:

• ‘We can do better’: Americans for Prosperity pans Oklahoma tax plan [NonDoc]
• The Raw Nerve of it All — Arrogance and Corporate Greed of ‘StepUp’ Plan [SCrosnoe]
• The Band Is Back Together [Tapp Into Common Sense]
• Is It a "Step Up" ... or a Step Down? [Jordan Green Says]