Small: An agenda for all statewide candidates

An agenda for all statewide candidates

By Jonathan Small

Candidates for statewide offices such as governor, attorney general and lieutenant governor are kicking off statewide campaigns. While candidates are very important, equally if not more important is what those statewide office candidates would accomplish, and how, if elected.

Oklahoma faces great opportunities and significant challenges; to address both, it will require newly elected officials to be willing to discuss those opportunities and challenges on the campaign trail and repeatedly commit to “do hard things” and help lead the state to meet the opportunities and challenges.

In campaigns, there is a great temptation to predominantly rely on message testing and polling to determine a candidate’s message while campaigning and subsequent focus while in office. While candidates most definitely should address major themes and desires from voters, leadership also requires thinking about what must be done for the sake of the future, even though it doesn’t seem as urgent as the next budget request from a tax consumer or what a poll says is important at that moment in time.

Three key areas warrant the attention of statewide officials.

The first focus of statewide candidates should be growth, specifically of taxpayers, their families and the private sector. Given the enormous challenges that taxpayers face from the incredible size and expansion of government at all levels, now more than ever across Oklahoma and the United States working families and job creators need and are looking for environments to locate that incentivize the best possible growth and opportunities for their families and employees.

Oklahoma has incredible obstacles to growth, including our penalty on work, the personal income tax, and our more than 141,000 state agency rules, regulations, and mandates. Sadly, the government posture in Oklahoma is that regardless of performance or the outcomes of billions in taxes collected, intentions are what matter and government is entitled to continue to extract from taxpayers.

The second focus of statewide candidates should be workforce – specifically the workforce needs of taxpayers, their families and the private sector. Despite multiple billions of taxpayer dollars from all levels of government for K-12 public education and higher education in Oklahoma, outcomes are abysmal, especially in reading, writing, math and science proficiency. States like Florida and Mississippi are demonstrating that with focus and accountability there is a better way that improves outcomes.

The third focus should be performance. Today, Oklahoma state and local governments are extracting billions of dollars out of the pockets of Oklahomans at a rate of approximately $22,000 per household. Once candidates win, there is enormous incentive to be allergic to details, strategy execution, and intense performance, accountability and assessment of how government is performing.

If Oklahoma is going to be all it can be, it is going to require statewide candidates and those who win to be tirelessly focused on incentivizing growth, courageously focused on doing the hard things to foster a vibrant workforce, and relentlessly fixed on holding accountable the performance of government.

Jonathan Small serves as president of the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs.