By Andrew Griffin

OKLAHOMA CITY — Attorney General Drew Edmondson, running as a Democrat in this year’s gubernatorial election, spoke with Oklahoma Watchdog this past week about the report featured here headlined “Spending leaves Oklahoma broke as revenue drops.”

“I’m not surprised,” Edmondson said of the report and the findings that showed Oklahoma in rough financial waters. “The recession was a little slow in getting here.”

Compared to financially unstable states like Michigan and California, Edmondson said, Oklahoma is “in pretty good shape.”

With oil and gas revenues lower than in previous years, Edmondson said the “deficit really got bad” but that “we’re starting to get out of that.”

But it will be in 2011 and 2012 that the economic realities of the downturn and declining revenues that will lead to some serious decision making by legislators.

Expanding natural gas production in the state should also be a priority, he said, adding that aerospace and aviation jobs need to be encouraged as well.

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