OKLAHOMA CITY – Everywhere you look, people are talking about budget cuts in Oklahoma. This week, an Associated Press article reported that in the state Senate, there is a battle over the state’s $669 million budget shortfall and cuts that would need to be made to senior nutrition programs.

At the end of February, the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government reported Oklahoma was No. 1, with the fifth consecutive quarterly drop in tax collections.

Oklahoma, which had largely weathered the maelstrom, is starting to feel the effects.

And in a recent editorial in The Oklahoman, headlined “We’re No. 1: State’s fiscal dip leads other states,” they wrote: “Oklahoma’s personal income tax collections fell by 24 percent, which also led the nation. It’s corporate income tax collections fell by even more.”

Significantly, The Oklahoman editorial noted that “sales tax collections dropped by 15.4 percent, compared with 4.2 percent nationally.”

There’s a reason for these tumbles, says Ted H. Smith, an economic analyst from Norman, Okla., who has been watching these developments closely and referencing state budget documents available online.

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