{"id":7880,"date":"2012-07-10T14:41:36","date_gmt":"2012-07-10T19:41:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/?p=7880"},"modified":"2012-12-20T10:00:31","modified_gmt":"2012-12-20T16:00:31","slug":"what-kansas-and-maryland-could-teach-oklahoma-about-taxes-and-services","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/2012\/07\/10\/what-kansas-and-maryland-could-teach-oklahoma-about-taxes-and-services\/","title":{"rendered":"What Kansas and Maryland Could Teach Oklahoma About Taxes and Services"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_7883\"  class=\"wp-caption module image right\" style=\"max-width: 300px;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/tonyjcase\/3798747786\/sizes\/z\/in\/photostream\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-7883\" title=\"Studying the Money\" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2012\/07\/money-study-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2012\/07\/money-study-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2012\/07\/money-study-500x334.jpg 500w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2012\/07\/money-study-150x100.jpg 150w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2012\/07\/money-study.jpg 620w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Great Beyond \/ Flickr<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">\n<\/div><p>States are finally starting to rise from the economic downturn, and lawmakers are taking a long, hard look at themselves.<\/p><p>They&#8217;re faced with a difficult question, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2012\/07\/11\/us\/as-state-revenues-begin-to-comeback-maryland-and-kansas-choose-different-paths.html?_r=1&hp\">writes<\/a> the <em>New York Times<\/em>&#8216; Michael Cooper: &#8220;Should they restore some of the services and jobs they were forced to cut after the recession \u2014 or cut taxes in the hopes of bolstering their local economies?&#8221;<\/p><p>Lawmakers in Oklahoma are <a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/topic\/income-tax\/\">dueling over those same questions<\/a>, and the political and policy philosophies that underlie each position.<\/p><p>No two states have settled the debate more differently than Kansas and Maryland, Cooper writes. They&#8217;re polar opposites, and they could serve as real-life post-recession policy test cases.<\/p><p><!--more--><\/p><p>Maryland is controlled by Democrats, has a &#8220;pristine&#8221; credit rating, and raised income taxes on its biggest earners this year in a bid to preserve services and spending, Cooper reports. Business groups there warned that income tax hikes would hurt the state&#8217;s competitiveness.<\/p><p>Kansas is completely different, Cooper writes. It&#8217;s controlled by Republicans who decided an income tax cut was the best way to spur its economy and business competition. Moody&#8217;s warned that Kansas&#8217; income tax cuts would mean big revenue losses and deficits that could necessitate more spending cuts down the road.<\/p><p>The income tax cut in Kansas played a prominent role in Oklahoma&#8217;s own argument over the tax \u2014 the state&#8217;s single largest source of funding for state agencies and services.<\/p>\n<div class=\"related-content alignleft\">\n<h4 class=\"related-header\">Related<\/h4>\n<div class=\"links\">\n<h5>Posts<\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li class=\"link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/2012\/06\/04\/fallin-income-tax-cut-doomed-by-lobbying\/\">Fallin: Income Tax Cut \u2018Doomed\u2019 by Lobbying<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/2012\/05\/25\/three-reasons-oklahomas-income-tax-cut-plan-failed\/\">Three Reasons Oklahoma\u2019s Income Tax Cut Plan Failed<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"topics\">\n<h5>Topics<\/h5>\n<p class=\"topic\"><img class=\"alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2011\/10\/income-taxTN-60x60.jpg\" height=\"60\" width=\"60\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/topic\/income-tax\/\">Everything You Need to Know About Oklahoma\u2019s Income Tax<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><p>Republicans argued that if Oklahoma didn&#8217;t lower its rate, <a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/2012\/05\/18\/how-lawmakers-plan-to-pay-for-the-income-tax-cut\/\">it could be sandwiched<\/a> between no-income tax Texas and lower-income tax Kansas. Gov. Mary Fallin wanted to reduce Oklahoma&#8217;s top rate to 3.5 percent from 5.25 percent, which would keep it below <a href=\"http:\/\/online.wsj.com\/article\/SB10001424052702304791704577418641784902500.html\">Kansas&#8217; recently reduced<\/a> 4.9 percent top rate.<\/p><p>Oklahoma lawmakers <a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/2012\/05\/25\/three-reasons-oklahomas-income-tax-cut-plan-failed\/\">didn&#8217;t pass an income tax cut<\/a> this year, a failure that was <a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/2012\/06\/04\/fallin-income-tax-cut-doomed-by-lobbying\/\">blamed on intense special interest lobbying<\/a> and efforts to preserve tax credits. Eliminating or reducing tax credits was a key part of proposals to cut Oklahoma&#8217;s income tax.<\/p><p>State budgets throughout the country were wrecked by the recession, Cooper writes. Tax collections dropped, and states cut hundreds of billions in spending. And many raised taxes temporarily.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Now, though, revenue has been steadily climbing back for nine straight quarters and a division between Republican-controlled and Democratic-controlled states is coming into sharp focus over whether to restore the lost services and jobs or to lower taxes, which in some states could effectively lock-in some of the budget cuts made during the downturn.<\/p><\/blockquote><p>We might have to wait years for the results, but Cooper says those two states are worth watching:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The choices made by Kansas and Maryland could provide something of a real-time test of the prevailing political theories of taxing and spending &#8230;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>States are finally starting to rise from the economic downturn, and lawmakers are taking a long, hard look at themselves.They&#8217;re faced with a difficult question, writes the New York Times&#8216; Michael Cooper: &#8220;Should they restore some of the services and jobs they were forced to cut after the recession \u2014 or cut taxes in the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":7883,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[492,16],"tags":[118,53],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7880"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7880"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7880\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7888,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7880\/revisions\/7888"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}