Fiscal Failure Frix, the worst choice for conservatives in CD2

Among the Republican candidates in the super crowded, 14-member 2nd Congressional District race is State Rep. Avery Frix (R-Muskogee), who is posturing himself as a super-conservative next-gen MAGA warrior intent on storming Washington.

Frix, elected to the State House in 2016, may be a registered Republican, but he's by no means a super-conservative. In fact, on many issues, he's simply not conservative. At all. Let me give you almost seven billion reasons why.

• In 2017, Frix voted to decouple the Oklahoma standard deduction from federal amounts, increasing Oklahomans' taxes by $4.4M.
• In 2017, Frix voted for a brand new government fee on sports tickets, increasing government fee collections by what was estimated at $2.9M annually.
• In 2017, Frix voted for a de-facto tax hike on small business owners of an estimated $14M annually.
• In 2017, Frix voted for a $95M tax hike on energy production.
• In 2017, Frix voted for a $123M vehicle sales tax hike.
• In 2017, Frix voted for a $258M cigarette tax hike that was unanimously ruled to be unconstitutional by the Oklahoma Supreme Court.
• In 2017, Frix voted for a $102M tax hike that would have limited itemized income tax deductions. It failed to receive a Senate hearing.
• In 2017, Frix voted for a $455M tax hike package on motor fuels, cigarettes, other tobacco products, beer, and some energy production (did not reach final passage).
• In 2017, Frix voted for an identical $455M tax hike passage to the previous one that did not reach a Senate vote.
• In 2017, Frix voted for a $151M tax hike on some oil and gas wells.
• In 2018, Frix took a $2,000 out-of-state legislative junket to New York City for a National Popular Vote conference sponsored by the Institute for Research on Presidential Elections.
• In 2018, Frix voted for a $581M mega-tax hike that failed to reach the 3/4ths vote required by the state constitution. This would have been the largest tax hike in decades, if not state history.
• In 2018, Frix voted for a $534M mega-tax hike, the largest tax hike to pass in Oklahoma since at least 1990. Raised taxes on energy production, tobacco products, cigarettes, gasoline and diesel fuels, and hotel/motel stays.
• In 2018, Frix voted for a bill to make it easier for the Legislature to raise taxes on Oklahomans.
• In 2020, Frix authored and passed an unfunded cost-of-living-adjustment, which would have increased Oklahoma pension system liability by $800M-$900M. Oklahoma government pension systems were in shockingly bad shape after Democratic control, with the teacher retirement system barely half-funded. Republicans spent several years in the early 2010s working to fix those sinking boats, and required any future COLAs to be fully-funded. Frix lead a return to the old Democratic way of passing unfunded increases (an long-used vote buying pander scheme).
• In March of this year, Frix authored and passed an historically bad bill through the House which would have undone all the work Republicans did to fix the state retirement systems, wiping away an estimated $3.8 billion in projected taxpayer savings, and which would have boosted state legislators' own retirement significantly. State Sen. Marty Quinn, a fellow candidate for Congress, helped kill this disastrous union-happy measure in the State Senate.

All told, between 2017 and 2018 alone (and I might have missed a few votes), Avery Frix voted for no less than $2.775B in tax hikes on Oklahomans. That's $2,775,000,000.00 with a billion B. 

Add to that his unfunded liablity bill of $800-$900M, plus his let's-gut-successful-conservative-pension-reforms-and-bring-back-the-failed-Democratic-plan bill, we're talking a fiscal record for Avery Frix of potentially near $7B ($7,000,000,000.00) worth of harm to the Oklahoma taxpayer.

I reached out to the folks at OCPA, who have watched fiscal policy at the Oklahoma State Capitol for years, asking them what they considered to be the worst fiscal bill they'd ever seen pass a state house or senate chamber. Frix's disastrous pension bill was the unanimous pick:

“Pension reform was a major conservative objective when Republicans finally took majorities in the legislature. Delivering on pension reform was a promise kept by conservative legislators, that reform eliminated billions in debt and was projected at the time to save taxpayers more than $300 million per year, or $3.4 billion over 30 years. It’s also been proven by legislative, legal and fiscal staff in both the Oklahoma House of Representatives and the Oklahoma Senate that, contrary to some legislators’ claims, the bill that passed the House to gut these reforms would have also provided a financial benefit to many of those same legislators.”

When real conservatives stood up to protect the Oklahoma taxpayer, Avery Frix opposed them. When real conservatives opposed tax hikes, Avery Frix supported almost every single tax hike vote. While real conservatives fixed failed retirement systems, Avery Frix wrote the bill to return to the old broken system, a big plus for his government union fans.

Of all the candidates running for the 2nd Congressional District seat, Avery Frix is the worst choice for real conservative voters. Oklahoma and America would be better off with almost any of the other 13 Republican candidates.

Avery Frix is no fiscal conservative. He's a fiscal conservative fraud.