Oklahoma schools go on 4-day weeks so teachers can work at Walmart on Mondays to make rent

brienne-ugh-shit

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The only fix is to create a better educated voting pub—oh, right.

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This type of scenario is what is in store for all of us. For those who continue to support trump and cheer him on from the sidelines, what will it take for them to realize they are in the same boat along with the rest of us and whatever happens to our livelihood will effect them as well. What does it take for stupid, willfully ignorant people to change their ideology to one that works in their self interest? Watching their children starving in their homes? Living and begging in the streets and fighting for scraps of food from feral dogs? Actually dying in the work place and just being carted out and thrown onto a heap of other dead bodies? Watching grandma and grandpa living in visible pain knowing there is not a damn thing you can to help them? Drinking contaminated water knowing it will kill you, but you’re just too damned thirsty to care? One can go on and on. MAGA! I’m just so god damned tired of winning!

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It’s a GOP thing, it doesn’t have to make sense as long as a few lawmakers fill their pockets. It’s their MO.

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This is what happens when you divert money from public schools to go to…private prisons?

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They are going to give large amounts of money to politicians who will so that they can run against you.

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You are right about that. Interestingly enough, there’s a precedent where Oklahoma did exactly that:

In that article they talk about the long term payoff and say this:

That delayed gratification can be hard for policymakers to stomach, but it might also be Oklahoma’s most critical lesson for other states.

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Oh, much much worse then those things.

They won’t contribute to your reelection campaign!

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Why not? It’s worked so far.

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This is exactly what I thought prior to the election driving through the central valley of CA. The sheer number of signs “Farmers for tRump!” with the text “he’ll fight for our water rights!”. Really? What action has he taken on that? Also, since most of CA agriculture runs on cheap (and I’d go so far as to say “undocumented” Mexican labor), WTF do you jackholes think is going to happen if he does build his magical f-ing wall, or start deporting everyone, etc…? I can tell you that it’s not going to be a f-ton of lower to middle class white people arguing that Mexicans are stealing “their” jobs, who are going to show up to harvest your fruit…

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I suspect many will die in ignorance. Others will go because of poverty or illness, whether or not they see it coming. Increasing numbers of the homeless and incarcerated will further reduce the voting population.

Folks at the top see all of the above as winning.

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They were promised more jobs, now they have them.

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well somebody better pick them watermelons after all the immigrants are deported

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Yeah, Kansas did overturn the tax cuts over Brownback’s veto. Oklahoma doesn’t have that option. You have to convince a majority of the population that a) they fucked up twenty five years ago, and b) they want to and have to pay more taxes in the future. Good luck.

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Thank you for sharing that. That’s actually inspiring. I have really begun to despair for our ability to do things for, and think of, the long term.

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As it turns out they don’t even need to do that.

The 1992 ballot initiative provided that no revenue raising legislation can be passed without either:

a) being put to the electorate at the next general election, or
b) being passed by 3/4 vote of both houses of the legislature.

http://www.oklegal.onenet.net/okcon/V-33.html

So if Oklahoman politicians wanted tax rises they could put them on the ballot. Next one would appear to be November 6th.

Any bets on whether there will be a comprehensive set of tax raising measures put forward by any major party?

Alternatively, voters could remove the amendment by putting up a new ballot initiative for which they would need at least 123,725 signatures - according to this Laws governing the initiative process in Oklahoma - Ballotpedia

290,000 or so people apparently voted against it in 1992 so that might be doable.

Once on the ballot, a simple majority of votes cast will apparently do the trick.

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You’ll also enjoy Act 4 of this episode:

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That’s my point. In states that allow ballot initiatives, this is all it takes to change the state’s constitution. There’s no need for people to impose new regressive taxes upon themselves. If they’re so damned libertarian leaning that they can’t stomach progressive taxation, they could go with a less-regressive-than-consumption-taxes flat tax so at least their resident oil barons will pay something to the coffers.

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Yeah we do. We get some pretty great people from OKC.

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