Oklahoma is taking in a lot of tax money. In fact, during the last year, the state has gotten so much extra money, it has as much as a billion dollars in the Rainy Day Fund (and other accounts).

That’s a billion with a “B.”

Gov. Kevin Stitt, to his credit, wants to sit tight on that money. Actually, he wants to build that account up to two billion dollars. The governor is not a politician – he is a businessman. He wants to have money in the bank if the energy industry tanks and the state loses most of its oil revenue.

That’s one approach.

Earlier this year, I interviewed State Sen. Nathan Dahm and I asked him about the surplus state funding. Sen. Dahm is the most conservative senator in Oklahoma and he has always been a backer of smaller, more efficient government.

His idea was to take the surplus and fully fund the state’s retirement accounts. When the Democrats ran the state (for about 100 years), they told teachers that they couldn’t pay big salaries but teachers were promised great benefits. That included lots of time off, free health insurance and a great pension plan.

Many went into public education believing the Democrats’ promises.

The problem was, the Democrats didn’t fund the pension plans. They “kicked the can down the road.” The Democrat leaders realized they would be long gone and out of office by the time all the teachers, policeman and firefighters would decide to take retirement.

When the Republicans took control of the Senate a few years ago, Sen. Mike Mazzei, Sen. Gary Stanislawski and other Republicans were shell shocked at the low levels of funding for the retirement funds.

So, the Republicans who ran the House and Senate started taking hundreds of millions of dollars from the general fund to pump up the retirement accounts. Those accounts were somewhere under 40 percent funded when they took over and now they are around 80 percent. Some are actually fully funded.

So, putting extra money in the retirement system is a good idea. But that didn’t happen in 2019. There was too much political pressure to raise teacher salaries and to placate agency heads who were screaming for bigger budgets to grow their departments.

A billion dollars would be a big boost to help the state keep its promise to teachers and others.

Here’s my idea.

Use the surplus to pay down the bonded indebtedness.

Oklahoma is awash in debt. The state owes hundreds of millions of dollars. Authorities like the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority have borrowed millions.

Cities, towns and counties have borrowed and borrowed and borrowed. Virtually no one has a “pay as you go “strategy.

In November, the City of Tulsa will probably approve a debt program for two-thirds of a billion (with a “B”) borrowing package. (Part of that scheme includes a city “rainy day fund” and no one knows how that will be spent).

School districts are the worst culprits. In Tulsa County, Tulsa Public Schools and Broken Arrow Schools pass the biggest bonds allowed by law.

In the good old days, school districts only passed bonds for buildings (brick and mortar). Those are things that lasted longer than the pay back. Now, they buy school buses, books, computers and other stuff that will be obsolete or worn out before the note is paid off.

School bonds pass because people don’t pay for them directly. The taxes are added on to your property taxes and the only time most people notice a difference is when they get a note from their home mortgage company saying that their monthly payment is rising due to higher taxes.

It’s a real disconnect.

For me, government finances should mirror personal or family finances. Dave Ramsey has it right. Spend less than you earn. Don’t borrow (except for a home mortgage). Pay off debt. Be a smart shopper.

None of those strategies make sense to politicians or agency bureaucrats because it is fun to spend someone else’s money.

But just think of the impact if the City of Tulsa owed no bond money. There would be so much more money for police and fire protection, for streets and bridges, etc. The amount of money Tulsa pays in interest is staggering.

(They always make the argument that the interest rates are so low that it makes sense to borrow all you can. That’s just an excuse.)

As you have already guessed, there was no discussion in the 2019 legislative session for paying off bonded indebtedness.

And since so many conservative Republicans were voted out in favor of liberal Republicans, there was no debate on cutting taxes.

 Cutting taxes stimulates the economy.

A case in point is all the retail sales on the annual tax-free weekend.

Here’s my conclusion. Oklahomans are over-taxed or there would be no surplus. And the forces that want to use that extra tax money for growing government will once again prevail.