Speaker 1: Good morning, good morning, good morning, and welcome, welcome, welcome.
Speaker 1: Idious time now for our community connection right here on
Speaker 1: K one, the one.
Speaker 2: You trust, and we're going to the big city, Oklahoma.
Speaker 1: City, the Capitol. We have John B. Keen, our representative
Speaker 1: here today. John, you brought a friend.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Tom, Yes, I did.
Speaker 3: This is a This is an exciting day for me,
Speaker 3: actually for Representative strawmas Well and Senator Daniels. We have
Speaker 3: one of the really great leaders of our state here.
Speaker 3: We have a Speaker of the House, Kyle Hilbert. Hey, Kyle,
Speaker 3: who I'm just an honor for me to get to
Speaker 3: serve under him at the down at the Capitol.
Speaker 2: He's a great leader.
Speaker 3: We talked about some things he's done that's changed from
Speaker 3: the former leadership, and it's just doing things his own way,
Speaker 3: and he's been very, very positive. So I'm thrilled to
Speaker 3: have him up in District eleven and District ten, Oklahoma.
Speaker 1: Well, great and Kyle, welcome a born. I understand you
Speaker 1: guys been kind of putting the pedal to the metal
Speaker 1: getting things done in this session.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, so yesterday was our first committee deadline, So there
Speaker 4: were thirty two hundred bills filed back in January, and
Speaker 4: all bills that didn't make it through the committee process
Speaker 4: or are now dead for the session. And so yesterday
Speaker 4: was a big day. So we funneled bills down. Now
Speaker 4: there's about a thousand pieces of legislation left that we'll
Speaker 4: start vetting through as we go through the floor process.
Speaker 2: But we've really been out of sprint.
Speaker 4: And rezum Caine here to my right, he's our Vice
Speaker 4: share of Appropriation, So him and our budget chairman, as
Speaker 4: well as their counterparts in the Senate, really working hard
Speaker 4: to put together a good budget for the taxpayers of Oklahoma.
Speaker 1: Well this sounds good, you know, I know that this
Speaker 1: is kind of a different time. We had all that
Speaker 1: monopoly money, as Senator Daniels would call it. It was
Speaker 1: coming in from Marpa. Now we're kind of going on
Speaker 1: our own.
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
Speaker 4: So there's two big things that are impacting our budget
Speaker 4: this year, of course, that we're watching is last year
Speaker 4: we passed the largest tax cut in the history of
Speaker 4: the state of Oklahoma by eliminating the sales tax portion
Speaker 4: of grocery tax. We saw with the Biden inflation and
Speaker 4: everything else that was impacting everybody when they're at the
Speaker 4: grocery stores the impact of the price of everything, and
Speaker 4: we wanted to reduce that. So now all Oklahoma's are
Speaker 4: paying four and a half percent less at the grocery store,
Speaker 4: which is great, but that also impacts our budget, right
Speaker 4: since that was the largest tax cut in state history.
Speaker 4: But also the monopoly money you referenced is all filtering
Speaker 4: out of our economy now, so that federal money that's
Speaker 4: been propping up our state is gone, and so we
Speaker 4: just want to be diligent and wise about how we
Speaker 4: go about our tax policy for the state.
Speaker 1: Now, speaking of taxes, we'd like to go to zero,
Speaker 1: you know, individual income tax, but it's going to take
Speaker 1: a while to get there. You can't do that with
Speaker 1: an ax. You got to do that with a scalpel,
Speaker 1: don't you. And I think you just kind of outlined
Speaker 1: it a little bit here by removing one tax and
Speaker 1: what are you going to do in order to keep
Speaker 1: things rolling?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Absolutely.
Speaker 4: In recent years, we've done a lot of tax cuts.
Speaker 4: I referenced the grocery tax cut. We've reduced income tax
Speaker 4: in recent years from five to four point seventy five percent,
Speaker 4: eliminated the franchise tax, eliminated the marriage penalty.
Speaker 2: We used to our tax code used to.
Speaker 4: Be structured in such a way that it was a
Speaker 4: benefit to file as a single taxpayer versus marriage.
Speaker 2: And that's not pro family values for Oklahoma.
Speaker 4: So we've eliminated that, and so we've made a lot
Speaker 4: of good progress, but again we want to be responsible
Speaker 4: about it, and like you said, not an axe or
Speaker 4: a chainsaw, but taken a scalpel to be really strategic
Speaker 4: in how we go about our budgeting.
Speaker 1: Oh great, great, Now we've got a lot of other
Speaker 1: bills besides money going on. What are some of the
Speaker 1: ones that are on your radar that you're looking at.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So education is of course always a hot topic.
Speaker 4: And one piece of legislation that we've already passed off
Speaker 4: our house floor was to reduce cell phone use in.
Speaker 1: Schools and Johnny had a little to do with that.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes he did.
Speaker 4: And so you know when you look when you talk
Speaker 4: to young people today and you see them sitting around
Speaker 4: somewhere probably inside, they're oftentimes not even having conversations with
Speaker 4: each other because they're all sitting on their cell phones.
Speaker 4: And so we also see that in our schools, and
Speaker 4: so the goal of our legislation is to let kids
Speaker 4: be kids and let teachers teach and get those cell
Speaker 4: phones out of schools. But there's also a critical piece
Speaker 4: in that I firmly believe I grew up in Depu, Oklahoma,
Speaker 4: thirty three people in my graduating class.
Speaker 2: And what's going to work at Deep High School.
Speaker 4: It's going to look different from Bartlesvill High School, it's
Speaker 4: going to look different from Tosa Public schools. And so
Speaker 4: we're allowing local control on how you implement this because
Speaker 4: that piece is really important.
Speaker 1: Well, that's good. Flexibility is always good, especially when you
Speaker 1: have a great idea. You don't want to see it
Speaker 1: to go south because it didn't fit quite everybody's cheeksaw puzzle.
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
Speaker 4: And I also want to say, and I always want
Speaker 4: to point this out when I'm talking about this subject.
Speaker 4: We talk about kids, but we as adults need to
Speaker 4: own it too. How many times have you been to
Speaker 4: a restaurant and it's late at night, it's dinner, and
Speaker 4: you see two people who are very clearly on a
Speaker 4: date and they're not talking to each other, they're looking
Speaker 4: down at their cell phone. So that's my challenge to
Speaker 4: all the listeners is get off your phones. Have conversations,
Speaker 4: talk to people.
Speaker 1: The first thing I'm doing when I retire, that thing's
Speaker 1: going in there. I've told that to everybody. Okay, and Johnny,
Speaker 1: you've been working really hard here on the money part
Speaker 1: too as well. What do you got to say about
Speaker 1: your leader here? Has he really been keeping you guys
Speaker 1: in liner? You guys been just kind of all on
Speaker 1: the same page since the get go.
Speaker 3: You know, he does he runs a tight ship, but
Speaker 3: he empowers us to do our jobs, and that's the.
Speaker 1: Really best of both works.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I really appreciate that about him.
Speaker 3: You know, if you're a chairman or vice chairman of
Speaker 3: a committee, he says, do your work, and he trusts
Speaker 3: us to understand the topics and you know, if we
Speaker 3: need him, we bring recommendations. He's got our back. So
Speaker 3: he's terrific in that in that manner. So, yeah, we're
Speaker 3: working hard. I think that there's a we talked about
Speaker 3: it at the very first of this session. It's kind
Speaker 3: of a it's a it feels different in the Capitol
Speaker 3: this year with the new leadership on both sides of
Speaker 3: the Rotunda and the Senate. In the House, that new leadership,
Speaker 3: there's better, there's better conversations going on between the Senate
Speaker 3: and the House than there have been the two years prior.
Speaker 2: I'm delighted to see that.
Speaker 3: I think that's only going to result in better policy
Speaker 3: and going forward.
Speaker 1: That sounds to me like there's been some improvement in communication,
Speaker 1: in streamlining in some of the things that you do.
Speaker 3: Oh.
Speaker 2: Absolutely so.
Speaker 4: One of the things that we did we changed our
Speaker 4: House process to where we have a two tiered process
Speaker 4: on most of the legislation. Now we've always done that
Speaker 4: on appropriations bills, but now on policy bills as well.
Speaker 4: Legislation went through a policy committee as well as a
Speaker 4: polic oversight committee. And the reason we did that is
Speaker 4: it shouldn't be easy to change the law in the
Speaker 4: state of Oklahoma. There should be and we want more sunlight,
Speaker 4: we want more transparency, and that's been a good thing.
Speaker 4: We actually we had a town hall this morning in Via, Oklahoma,
Speaker 4: and Senator Daniels, the floor leader in the Senate, said
Speaker 4: that for the first time, I think she said in
Speaker 4: living memory, the Senate still has more bills alive than
Speaker 4: the House.
Speaker 2: So our process worked.
Speaker 4: We did a good job of funneling legislation, and you know,
Speaker 4: but I think the end goal is to put out
Speaker 4: good result from taxpayers.
Speaker 1: Well Gate, speaking of that, you got the clock ticking
Speaker 1: till we get done with session. What's in your windshield
Speaker 1: here coming up in the next couple of weeks.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So our next big deadline is March twenty seventh,
Speaker 4: So that's the big date to watch. So over the
Speaker 4: course of the next three weeks, the House will be
Speaker 4: hearing all those bills that came out of committee on
Speaker 4: our side, our counterparts in the Senate will be doing
Speaker 4: the same and then trying to navigate through what that
Speaker 4: looks like. I mean, we talked about the budget a
Speaker 4: little bit. All these policy bills they end up having
Speaker 4: fiscal impacts as well, and so what does that end
Speaker 4: up doing to the budget? How do you work that
Speaker 4: all in a lot of good negotiations. As represent Kine said, though,
Speaker 4: the relationship and the House of Senate, it couldn't be better.
Speaker 4: I can't remember a time it's been better in my
Speaker 4: nine years in office. And that doesn't mean we agree
Speaker 4: on everything. Frankly, it wouldn't be good government if we
Speaker 4: agreed on everything. But we can disagree better and have
Speaker 4: good conversations about how to move the state forward.
Speaker 1: ALRIGHTY want to thank you for being here. Is there
Speaker 1: anything you'd like to add?
Speaker 4: Sure, I would say one other thing that we're really
Speaker 4: talking about is administrative rules. And I know administrative rules
Speaker 4: are not something that are the hottest topic, and everybody
Speaker 4: stays up late at night reading administrative rules. But we're
Speaker 4: in legislative session February through May. We pass statutes. When
Speaker 4: we leave session, then the bureaucracy, the agency heads, they
Speaker 4: take those rules, those laws that we passed, and then
Speaker 4: interpret them.
Speaker 2: What do those mean?
Speaker 4: And sometimes agencies and government has a tendency to scope,
Speaker 4: creep and grow and go beyond the legislative intent that
Speaker 4: we originally pass. And so we're really taking a close
Speaker 4: look on administrative rules because those have impacts on people's
Speaker 4: everyday lives. And if it has a substantial financial impact
Speaker 4: on the state on Oklahomas, then now we're making it
Speaker 4: where they're administrative rules have to come back to the
Speaker 4: legislature for an up or down vote for legislative approval
Speaker 4: by elected officials instead of just unelected officials determining the
Speaker 4: law of.
Speaker 2: The land in Oklahoma.
Speaker 1: I dogs by time.
Speaker 2: That's right. The Rains Act, that's great, that's great Thank you.
Speaker 1: Gentlemen, John B. Thank you, and thank you Gut for
Speaker 1: coming in. Appreciate it.
Speaker 2: Great to have you.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 2: Nice education today,