10 ms·

Oklahoma isn't working. Can anyone fix this failing American state?

28 points by clumsysmurf 9y ago

cmurf 9y ago
On the economic numbers, at least on an accounting basis, Illinois and Connecticut are also failing states, and are in imminent risk of bankruptcy.
- AnimalMuppet 9y ago
  On the crime numbers, Illinois looks pretty bad, too. (That's relevant to the "failing state" claim, because anarchy in the streets means that the state's law enforcement efforts are ineffective.)
  - devmunchies 9y ago
    it also makes the law enforcement more expensive and, in this case, more wasteful.
    - cmurf 9y ago
      And potentially more desperate, which can result in collective punishment, various civil rights violations, and expensive lawsuits. This is about what you expect from kakistocracy.
- notfromhere 9y ago
  Mostly a pension thing. Illinois will pull through so long as Chicago is still the center of the Midwestern economy
  - WkndTriathlete 9y ago
    I'm skeptical of that claim. The only economies that Chicago is at the middle of in the Midwest are agriculture futures for big ag business and options trading for big financial business. Otherwise, Chicago's economic footprint outside of Illinois extends to cover Milwaukee and maybe western Michigan and Indiana. If Illinois suffered an economic collapse I'm pretty sure the futures and options exchanges could be moved out of the city in short order. There are other big cities on Lake Michigan or Superior that can (and do) act as ports that could take over the shipping traffic. What else would be left?
    - notfromhere 9y ago
      Chicago has a very diversified economy. It's not all corn fields and futures.
thex10 9y ago
Has anyone tried holding the people who run public institutions there accountable for their failure?
- sapienthomo 9y ago
  Oklahoma native here. The state is an interesting mix of utterly dysfunctional state government and reasonably competent city governments, in a state where most of the people live in either Oklahoma City or Tulsa metro areas. I don't know much about Tulsa but Oklahoma City has repeatedly passed sales taxes over the last 30 years in order to bring about civic improvements. These tax plans are known as MAPS: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_Area_Projects_Plan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_Area_Projects_Pla... These plans have been executed pretty much according to what they claimed to do, and the administration over the years has been competent and uncontroversial. The state government, on the other hand, is totally dominated by the homophobia, Islamophobia, and the rest of the guns-and-gays distractions of the national far right. State government has repeated slashed taxes on oil and gas extraction, plunging the state into the crisis described in this article. No meaningful debate ever takes place in the state legislature or executive. Campaigns are fought entirely on the basis of who hates gays and loves Jesus more than the other guy. It is really sad, and a strange contrast to the major local governments. When I was going to high school in Oklahoma I was offered a perfectly adequate education at the public school nearest my house. We had all the AP subjects. We had music, drama, and art. We had football, baseball, basketball, swimming, and any other sport you'd care to think of, even rodeo. Of course we didn't have sex education, which is why Oklahoma suffered from, and continues to suffer from the worst teen birth rate of any state in the nation. Back then, people went to private schools only because either their parents were utterly unhinged Jesus freaks, or because they failed out of the public schools. Private schools were for weirdos and losers. Now it's the opposite. No family with any kind of money sends their children to public school in Oklahoma. The state educational apparatus has completely failed in the span of only about 25 years.
  - nkrisc 9y ago
    I have to imagine a failed public education system is going to reduce the likelihood of any state elected officials being held accountable. A democracy requires an educated populace.
tracker1 9y ago
Maybe it's time to get rid of privatized prisons and maximizing incarceration and felony convictions. May also be time to start expunging most felony records after N years. Who tries to start a large-ish business when 1/12 the population is caught, how many other felonies are committed? This is of course only part of the problem. In the end, it's time to look at the value proposition everywhere, cutting education as deeply as they have should be a last resort. I'm all for cutting in most places, but it's pretty clear that they have larger issues to address than 4-day schools and a 1:12 felony rate will fix.
- tpeo 9y ago
  "Expunging" criminal records might be a bit too much, since this information might be still be useful for public statistics bureaus and for policy makers. Making criminal records past a certain period unavailable to the public would suffice.
- gozur88 9y ago
  So, great, you've identified some problems. That's the easy part.
- SN76477 9y ago
  Maybe you are on the right path. Maybe when an ultra conservative stake goes bankrupt, they will turn around.
exabrial 9y ago
What works in NY and CA is often very harmful in low population states. Laws like AHCA and agencies like the EPA often give little consideration to the economies of low density states. It doesn't have to be this way, we can exploit natural resources safely, and we can have affordable health care, but not in the current fashion.
- sapienthomo 9y ago
  Oklahoma's natural resource exploitation regime is so lacking in regulation that they are notorious for their man-made earthquakes. It is near the theoretical lower limit of regulation. It is unimaginable that excessive regulation is the state's foremost problem.
  - jjeaff 9y ago
    These man-made (mini) earthquakes have caused damage that in total could be measured in the low millions of dollars (if that much). To put that in perspective, a single large frac well can pull in a million dollars a day easily.
  - exabrial 9y ago
    I live in Kansas, I'm well aware. The story is much more complicated than that, there are a ton of contributing factors that stem from intentional regressive regulations. The earthquake problem is caused by salt-water injection over-budgets (no, fracking does not cause earthquakes no matter what you read on the news). The better question is: why was this never an issue when business was _booming_ in the 70s-80s? Obama's administration removed a key tax credit for prospecting businesses if they hit a dry hole (A tax credit that's available to any other business for failures). These wells used to be completed and leased as injection wells. Now, if a hole starts to appear dry, drilling is stopped and the well sealed and capped. This has decrease the diversity of injection sites across the states, straining current infrastructure.
- neo4sure 9y ago
  So according to your argument, the states fortunes should be changing right about now, since there is less regulation now..
gozur88 9y ago
Oklahoma has always been on the short list of "poorest states", even before the dust bowl.
neo4sure 9y ago
What a difference between California and these stupid states. Calfornia is about to become the 5th largest economy in the world. And these guys are trying to prove a failed ideology over and over.
- totalZero 9y ago
  Who are you calling "stupid"? I don't see anything constructive in insulting people for what you believe to be failures of their government.
- jjeaff 9y ago
  California is succeeding despite it's "stupid" government and policies. Not because of. Add to that, shipping ports and the fact that both Hollywood and tech started there and a nice eternally warm climate and you have a recipe for a thriving economy. None of which have anything to do with political leanings.
  - neo4sure 9y ago
    Sure it just works well without good government. Keep believing those myths and you should go and live in the states run by the "proper" governments.
  - bobdole1234 9y ago
    [citation needed]
totalZero 9y ago
The author of this article lives in Canada and has written a book called "You Dumb Okie." I don't see anything constructive about his tone, nor do I find any new ideas in his writing. It sounds like criticism and resentment pointed at red states.
- terminus 9y ago
  > I don't see anything constructive about his tone, nor do I find any new ideas in his writing. Umm... the article is making the case for how Oklahoma is failing it's people. A case accompanied with publicly available data. The tone seems mostly reasonable. > It sounds like criticism and resentment pointed at red states. You seem to be the one who's conflating Oklahoma with red states. If you think there's something wrong about the article, maybe critique something in the article. Right now, all you seem to be doing is lobbing ad-hominem attacks.
  - totalZero 9y ago
    As an Oklahoman, I think it's a little strange when someone at a Canadian university writes an article funded by the Rockefeller Foundation about "failing" Oklahoma, and has written a book called You Dumb [Epithet that applies to me]. I don't see how the tone there is remotely reasonable. The author explicitly links Oklahoma to Trump by describing it as having the third-largest margin of victory in the presidential election. Hence the red state comment. I don't think you actually read the article, because you assumed that i was lobbing ad-hominem attacks instead of directly referencing what the author has written.
    - terminus 9y ago
      > As an Oklahoman, I think it's a little strange when someone at a Canadian university writes an article funded by the Rockefeller Foundation about "failing" Oklahoma, and has written a book called You Dumb [Epithet that applies to me]. I don't see how the tone there is remotely reasonable. Three points: One, your argument seems to be with the title and the tone of the author's book. I'm looking purely at the content of the article which seems reasonable to me. Second, the response of Oklahoma's /governor/ to falling revenues is prayer: > “Our situation is dire,” Oklahoma finance director Preston Doerflinger said. “To use a pretty harsh word, our revenues are difficult at best. Maybe they fall into the category of somewhat pathetic.” > Governor Mary Fallin had an answer: prayer. The governor issued an official proclamation making 13 October Oilfield Prayer Day. Doesn't that seem mind boggling to you? That definitely seems /dumb/ to me. Third, I don't think that epithet "dumb okie" necessarily applies to you. The author's argument -- without having read the book -- seems to apply to a subset of Oklahoma. For instance the author is clearly sympathetic to the victims of police brutality, the teachers of Oklahoma etc. > The author explicitly links Oklahoma to Trump by describing it as having the third-largest margin of victory in the presidential election. Hence the red state comment. That's fair. Sidepoint: how do you feel about Pruitt at EPA?
grok2 9y ago
Does anyone know if there is some mechanism for the general public to provide funds to the education system in Oklahoma? Something like a gofundme page where it is clear the money is going to the system and not getting mis-used or mis-directed?
- FiveDegrees 9y ago
  Taxes?
  - CrumhornCarl 9y ago
    That would certainly be nice, but from what I've seen there is quite of bit of waste with the funds we do have... I think this article touches on at least one of the problems: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/aug/21/universities-broke-cut-pointless-admin-teaching https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/aug/21/univer...
  - grok2 9y ago
    That's supposed to be the original source of funds for schools, but unfortunately in this case it clearly is not working for them.
- CrumhornCarl 9y ago
  Yes, absolutely! I'm a public school teacher in OKC and this year the admins have heavily encouraged us to make use of donorschoose.org to request items we need for the classroom. Here's a link to current projects that teachers in OKCPS are requesting: https://www.donorschoose.org/donors/search.html?state=OK&cityName=Oklahoma%20City&countyName=Oklahomacounty&includeNearbyLocations=true https://www.donorschoose.org/donors/search.html?state=OK&cit... I haven't used the site yet, but know of several teachers who were able to purchase things for their classroom (computers, instruments, etc) that they wouldn't have been able to afford otherwise thanks to people asking questions like yours!
  - grok2 9y ago
    Thanks -- took a look and donated to a couple of projects. It seems like most of the schools represented are in the urban areas though...from the original article it appears that Oklahoma City is still mostly doing well. How is the school district faring in general?
mnm1 9y ago
"Governor Mary Fallin had an answer: prayer. The governor issued an official proclamation making 13 October Oilfield Prayer Day." With such leadership is it any wonder the state is failing? Oil is over. Either find another industry or accept the inevitable poverty. If the cities are indeed doing well, however, then it's hard to say the state is failing. Of course rural areas are poor, though the police and public workers could have some empathy and compassion, both sorely lacking. Rural areas will fail as they are failing and have been failing everywhere in the world. Only entitlement created by some unusually prosperous years due to oil have made the people not realize this.

28 points by clumsysmurf 9y ago

On the economic numbers, at least on an accounting basis, Illinois and Connecticut are also failing states, and are in imminent risk of bankruptcy.

AnimalMuppet 9y ago
On the crime numbers, Illinois looks pretty bad, too. (That's relevant to the "failing state" claim, because anarchy in the streets means that the state's law enforcement efforts are ineffective.)
- devmunchies 9y ago
  it also makes the law enforcement more expensive and, in this case, more wasteful.
  - cmurf 9y ago
    And potentially more desperate, which can result in collective punishment, various civil rights violations, and expensive lawsuits. This is about what you expect from kakistocracy.
notfromhere 9y ago
Mostly a pension thing. Illinois will pull through so long as Chicago is still the center of the Midwestern economy
- WkndTriathlete 9y ago
  I'm skeptical of that claim. The only economies that Chicago is at the middle of in the Midwest are agriculture futures for big ag business and options trading for big financial business. Otherwise, Chicago's economic footprint outside of Illinois extends to cover Milwaukee and maybe western Michigan and Indiana. If Illinois suffered an economic collapse I'm pretty sure the futures and options exchanges could be moved out of the city in short order. There are other big cities on Lake Michigan or Superior that can (and do) act as ports that could take over the shipping traffic. What else would be left?
  - notfromhere 9y ago
    Chicago has a very diversified economy. It's not all corn fields and futures.

thex10 9y ago

Has anyone tried holding the people who run public institutions there accountable for their failure?

sapienthomo 9y ago
Oklahoma native here. The state is an interesting mix of utterly dysfunctional state government and reasonably competent city governments, in a state where most of the people live in either Oklahoma City or Tulsa metro areas. I don't know much about Tulsa but Oklahoma City has repeatedly passed sales taxes over the last 30 years in order to bring about civic improvements. These tax plans are known as MAPS: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_Area_Projects_Plan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_Area_Projects_Pla... These plans have been executed pretty much according to what they claimed to do, and the administration over the years has been competent and uncontroversial. The state government, on the other hand, is totally dominated by the homophobia, Islamophobia, and the rest of the guns-and-gays distractions of the national far right. State government has repeated slashed taxes on oil and gas extraction, plunging the state into the crisis described in this article. No meaningful debate ever takes place in the state legislature or executive. Campaigns are fought entirely on the basis of who hates gays and loves Jesus more than the other guy. It is really sad, and a strange contrast to the major local governments. When I was going to high school in Oklahoma I was offered a perfectly adequate education at the public school nearest my house. We had all the AP subjects. We had music, drama, and art. We had football, baseball, basketball, swimming, and any other sport you'd care to think of, even rodeo. Of course we didn't have sex education, which is why Oklahoma suffered from, and continues to suffer from the worst teen birth rate of any state in the nation. Back then, people went to private schools only because either their parents were utterly unhinged Jesus freaks, or because they failed out of the public schools. Private schools were for weirdos and losers. Now it's the opposite. No family with any kind of money sends their children to public school in Oklahoma. The state educational apparatus has completely failed in the span of only about 25 years.
- nkrisc 9y ago
  I have to imagine a failed public education system is going to reduce the likelihood of any state elected officials being held accountable. A democracy requires an educated populace.

tracker1 9y ago

Maybe it's time to get rid of privatized prisons and maximizing incarceration and felony convictions. May also be time to start expunging most felony records after N years. Who tries to start a large-ish business when 1/12 the population is caught, how many other felonies are committed? This is of course only part of the problem. In the end, it's time to look at the value proposition everywhere, cutting education as deeply as they have should be a last resort. I'm all for cutting in most places, but it's pretty clear that they have larger issues to address than 4-day schools and a 1:12 felony rate will fix.

tpeo 9y ago
"Expunging" criminal records might be a bit too much, since this information might be still be useful for public statistics bureaus and for policy makers. Making criminal records past a certain period unavailable to the public would suffice.
gozur88 9y ago
So, great, you've identified some problems. That's the easy part.
SN76477 9y ago
Maybe you are on the right path. Maybe when an ultra conservative stake goes bankrupt, they will turn around.

exabrial 9y ago

What works in NY and CA is often very harmful in low population states. Laws like AHCA and agencies like the EPA often give little consideration to the economies of low density states. It doesn't have to be this way, we can exploit natural resources safely, and we can have affordable health care, but not in the current fashion.

sapienthomo 9y ago
Oklahoma's natural resource exploitation regime is so lacking in regulation that they are notorious for their man-made earthquakes. It is near the theoretical lower limit of regulation. It is unimaginable that excessive regulation is the state's foremost problem.
- jjeaff 9y ago
  These man-made (mini) earthquakes have caused damage that in total could be measured in the low millions of dollars (if that much). To put that in perspective, a single large frac well can pull in a million dollars a day easily.
- exabrial 9y ago
  I live in Kansas, I'm well aware. The story is much more complicated than that, there are a ton of contributing factors that stem from intentional regressive regulations. The earthquake problem is caused by salt-water injection over-budgets (no, fracking does not cause earthquakes no matter what you read on the news). The better question is: why was this never an issue when business was _booming_ in the 70s-80s? Obama's administration removed a key tax credit for prospecting businesses if they hit a dry hole (A tax credit that's available to any other business for failures). These wells used to be completed and leased as injection wells. Now, if a hole starts to appear dry, drilling is stopped and the well sealed and capped. This has decrease the diversity of injection sites across the states, straining current infrastructure.
neo4sure 9y ago
So according to your argument, the states fortunes should be changing right about now, since there is less regulation now..

gozur88 9y ago

Oklahoma has always been on the short list of "poorest states", even before the dust bowl.

neo4sure 9y ago

What a difference between California and these stupid states. Calfornia is about to become the 5th largest economy in the world. And these guys are trying to prove a failed ideology over and over.

totalZero 9y ago
Who are you calling "stupid"? I don't see anything constructive in insulting people for what you believe to be failures of their government.
jjeaff 9y ago
California is succeeding despite it's "stupid" government and policies. Not because of. Add to that, shipping ports and the fact that both Hollywood and tech started there and a nice eternally warm climate and you have a recipe for a thriving economy. None of which have anything to do with political leanings.
- neo4sure 9y ago
  Sure it just works well without good government. Keep believing those myths and you should go and live in the states run by the "proper" governments.
- bobdole1234 9y ago
  [citation needed]

totalZero 9y ago

The author of this article lives in Canada and has written a book called "You Dumb Okie." I don't see anything constructive about his tone, nor do I find any new ideas in his writing. It sounds like criticism and resentment pointed at red states.

terminus 9y ago
> I don't see anything constructive about his tone, nor do I find any new ideas in his writing. Umm... the article is making the case for how Oklahoma is failing it's people. A case accompanied with publicly available data. The tone seems mostly reasonable. > It sounds like criticism and resentment pointed at red states. You seem to be the one who's conflating Oklahoma with red states. If you think there's something wrong about the article, maybe critique something in the article. Right now, all you seem to be doing is lobbing ad-hominem attacks.
- totalZero 9y ago
  As an Oklahoman, I think it's a little strange when someone at a Canadian university writes an article funded by the Rockefeller Foundation about "failing" Oklahoma, and has written a book called You Dumb [Epithet that applies to me]. I don't see how the tone there is remotely reasonable. The author explicitly links Oklahoma to Trump by describing it as having the third-largest margin of victory in the presidential election. Hence the red state comment. I don't think you actually read the article, because you assumed that i was lobbing ad-hominem attacks instead of directly referencing what the author has written.
  - terminus 9y ago
    > As an Oklahoman, I think it's a little strange when someone at a Canadian university writes an article funded by the Rockefeller Foundation about "failing" Oklahoma, and has written a book called You Dumb [Epithet that applies to me]. I don't see how the tone there is remotely reasonable. Three points: One, your argument seems to be with the title and the tone of the author's book. I'm looking purely at the content of the article which seems reasonable to me. Second, the response of Oklahoma's /governor/ to falling revenues is prayer: > “Our situation is dire,” Oklahoma finance director Preston Doerflinger said. “To use a pretty harsh word, our revenues are difficult at best. Maybe they fall into the category of somewhat pathetic.” > Governor Mary Fallin had an answer: prayer. The governor issued an official proclamation making 13 October Oilfield Prayer Day. Doesn't that seem mind boggling to you? That definitely seems /dumb/ to me. Third, I don't think that epithet "dumb okie" necessarily applies to you. The author's argument -- without having read the book -- seems to apply to a subset of Oklahoma. For instance the author is clearly sympathetic to the victims of police brutality, the teachers of Oklahoma etc. > The author explicitly links Oklahoma to Trump by describing it as having the third-largest margin of victory in the presidential election. Hence the red state comment. That's fair. Sidepoint: how do you feel about Pruitt at EPA?

grok2 9y ago

Does anyone know if there is some mechanism for the general public to provide funds to the education system in Oklahoma? Something like a gofundme page where it is clear the money is going to the system and not getting mis-used or mis-directed?

FiveDegrees 9y ago
Taxes?
- CrumhornCarl 9y ago
  That would certainly be nice, but from what I've seen there is quite of bit of waste with the funds we do have... I think this article touches on at least one of the problems: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/aug/21/universities-broke-cut-pointless-admin-teaching https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/aug/21/univer...
- grok2 9y ago
  That's supposed to be the original source of funds for schools, but unfortunately in this case it clearly is not working for them.
CrumhornCarl 9y ago
Yes, absolutely! I'm a public school teacher in OKC and this year the admins have heavily encouraged us to make use of donorschoose.org to request items we need for the classroom. Here's a link to current projects that teachers in OKCPS are requesting: https://www.donorschoose.org/donors/search.html?state=OK&cityName=Oklahoma%20City&countyName=Oklahomacounty&includeNearbyLocations=true https://www.donorschoose.org/donors/search.html?state=OK&cit... I haven't used the site yet, but know of several teachers who were able to purchase things for their classroom (computers, instruments, etc) that they wouldn't have been able to afford otherwise thanks to people asking questions like yours!
- grok2 9y ago
  Thanks -- took a look and donated to a couple of projects. It seems like most of the schools represented are in the urban areas though...from the original article it appears that Oklahoma City is still mostly doing well. How is the school district faring in general?

mnm1 9y ago

"Governor Mary Fallin had an answer: prayer. The governor issued an official proclamation making 13 October Oilfield Prayer Day." With such leadership is it any wonder the state is failing? Oil is over. Either find another industry or accept the inevitable poverty. If the cities are indeed doing well, however, then it's hard to say the state is failing. Of course rural areas are poor, though the police and public workers could have some empathy and compassion, both sorely lacking. Rural areas will fail as they are failing and have been failing everywhere in the world. Only entitlement created by some unusually prosperous years due to oil have made the people not realize this.