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The Tulsa Beacon

 

Opinion

Editorial: Putting Oklahomans First

Tulsa Beacon

Monica Granstaff and her family waited 12 years to get high-speed internet access to their farm near Okemah. In early September, the Oklahoma Broadband Office joined her family to witness their first fiber connection. The Granstaff family represents the hundreds of thousands of Oklahomans that will be connected by our grant programs, improving their lives…

Editorial: If you hate the poor, raise the minimum wage

Tulsa Beacon

The gap between intentions and outcomes can be vast in politics, as the push to raise Oklahoma’s minimum wage demonstrates. Proponents say they want to help struggling citizens at the bottom of the state’s economic ladder. But in practice, their wage-policy preference yanks that ladder out of the hands of those low-income workers, leaving them…

Editorial: Lawmakers must confront Higher Ed, K-12 on reading crisis

Tulsa Beacon

“There is no reason a child cannot read before they are in third grade,” former State Superintendent Joy Hofmeister said in 2019. “But our teachers have to teach based on the science of reading, and that is not happening across this state. It is happening in pockets.” While I disagreed with Hofmeister on many issues,…

Editorial: Oklahoma teachers make more than you think

Tulsa Beacon

In a press release issued earlier this year, House Democratic Leader Cyndi Munson of Oklahoma City declared that Oklahoma ranks “last in the region for teacher pay.” That claim may align with a longstanding stereotype, but not with reality. By any measure, Oklahoma teacher pay is not the last in the region nor anywhere near…

Editorial: Oklahoma school-choice critics miss the mark

Tulsa Beacon

Opponents of Oklahoma’s school choice program claim it primarily benefits “the rich” because, in effect, the joint income of a working mom and dad with children is greater than the income of a young, single person with no children. Yes, the arguments against school choice really are that stupid. The Oklahoma Parental Choice Tax Credit…

Letter: America’s Greatest Mistake

Tulsa Beacon

When America adopted the term “Separation of Church and State” it began America’s greatest mistake, although it was a great idea originally.  It was meant to keep the federal government from dictating to churches what to do or say. But since then, they have changed what the First Amendment really meant.  Now it is used…

Editorial: Medicaid work requirements make moral and fiscal sense

Tulsa Beacon

“Work” may be a four-letter word, but it’s not an obscenity. You wouldn’t know that based on the reaction of many liberals to the new work requirements for Medicaid. To stay on Medicaid, the new law requires able-bodied adults with no children to spend only 80 hours per month either working, going to school, participating…

Editorial: OK economic reforms strengthen families, reward work, expand freedom

Tulsa Beacon

Oklahoma made meaningful progress during the 2025 legislative session with reforms that support families, encourage work, and expand opportunity. Together, they represent a steady movement toward a healthier, family-centered state—one where parents keep more of what they earn, education options reflect the needs of families, and the government respects individual initiative. Too often, economic and…

Editorial: Work requirements a win for taxpayers

Tulsa Beacon

“Work” may be a four-letter word, but it’s not an obscenity. You wouldn’t know that based on the reaction of many liberals to the new work requirements for Medicaid. To stay on Medicaid, the new law requires able-bodied adults with no children to spend only 80 hours per month either working, going to school, participating…

Editorial: Supreme Court unanimously rejects DEI double standards

Tulsa Beacon

The U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled that discrimination is wrong. That may surprise Ibram Kendi disciples but not any Oklahoman with an ounce of common sense. Kendi is the author of How to Be an Antiracist and notoriously declared that “racial discrimination is not inherently racist” and that the “only remedy to past discrimination is…