tax dollars

Community Schools Are The Marxist Solution For Oklahoma Schools – Vote NO on HB1467 by West

Wednesday of this week (2.12.25) Representative Tammy West’s bill to “authorizing the State Board of Education to assist in establishing Community School pilot projects” is once again being heard in the Common Education Committee.

This is a national move to create schools that are all things to all parents – they would include everything from health care to psychological counseling. Here is a screenshot from the front page of their website.

Below is a one-pager I wrote when this bill first came up in 2022. In fact, that should say something in and of itself. Representative West keeps introducing this bill and it keeps getting voted down. Is it because our schools are already socially Marxist? Why does she keep bringing this up?

But then what do we know? When we wrote to the Common Education Committee members to ask them to vote against the bill, Former Senate author for West (and no longer in the senate) Dewayne Pemberton, assured members that he had been to a Community School in Tulsa (which made one of our points by the way) and that he hadn’t seen Karl Marx hiding behind the shrubs.

What Are Some Concerns With Community Schools?

HB3374 – Tammy West and Pemberton (Senate) – Community schools; authorizing the State Board of Education to assist in establishing community school pilot projects

(2025 BILL IS HB1647)

1. President Obama placed Full Service Community Schools into the Elementary and Secondary Education Act in 2016. They are called “full service” schools because they provide every need for a child that a family/parent would including education, counseling services, healthcare and nutrition. (https://www2.ed.gov/programs/communityschools/index.html)

2. The Biden Administration provided grants for Full Service Community Schools programs (https://oese.ed.gov/offices/office-of-discretionary-grants-support-services/school-choice-improvement-programs/full-service-community-schools-program-fscs/) through President Obama’s reauthorization of ESEA – the Every Student Succeeds Act.

3. There are two national organizations which help support the Community Schools model – Community Schools (communityschools.org) and the National Center For Community Schools (nccs.org)

a. Community Schools have an agenda called “Policy by The People” the tenets for which they are lobbying Congress (https://www.communityschools.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/01/2021-01-13_IEL_PolicybythePeopleagenda_FINAL.pdf). Here are a few points from their agenda which essentially involves expanding government programming and funding of every service involving children:

– Prioritization of populations that have historically experienced systemic racism, discrimination, and/or disinvestment

– End the school to prison pipeline/school pushout crisis through stronger enforcement of civil rights protections and incentives for a restorative approach including restorative justice, trauma-informed practices, and hiring additional school counselors, social workers, and psychologists

– Raise the minimum wage to $15/hour and/or establish a universal basic income

b. National Center For Community Schools follow three principles: Transformation, Equity and Excellence. The ‘Equity’ portion of the website says the following: Strong community schools counter systemic racism, increase opportunity, and move society toward equity and justice. Too many children are expected to overcome structures designed to diminish them. Schools should model anti-racism, not perpetuate systems that divide us and limit opportunity. We want students to feel not just welcomed, but valued for their race, religion, identification, origin, family, and community.

4. Community Schools follow the model proposed by John Dewey (a socialist with Marxist views often considered the father of modern education) of a ‘democratic school-based social center’ where the school provided every possible need for students. An article in the AFT’s American Educator Magazine in Summer of 2009 – “The Enduring Appeal of Community Schools” – provides a quote from Dewey’s 1902 address, “The School as Social Centre”, “The conception of the school as a social centre is born of our entire democratic movement. Everywhere we see signs of the growing recognition that the community owes to each one of its members the fullest opportunity for development.” This, a quote which can’t help comparison to the quote of Marx, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs”.

5. Enshrining a Community Schools pilot program in law while allowing the OSDE to create rules for that program is a recipe for creating further progressive, leftist inroads into the education of our children.

6. Oklahoma communities HAVE BEEN creating their own Community Schools independent of state law. The only reason to pass a state law, then, would be to allow the growth of the Community Schools movement throughout Oklahoma and provide the necessary validation for the Federal Government to provide tax dollars for these schools. Federal/State tax dollars should NOT be provided for socialist, progressive education efforts in this country, let alone this state.

Please write the members of the Common Education Committee and ask for their NO vote on HB1467 by West. Just copy and paste the block of addresses and put them into your ‘to’ field.

dick.lowe@okhouse.gov, danny.sterling@okhouse.gov, chris.banning@okhouse.gov, chad.caldwell@okhouse.gov, rob.hall@okhouse.gov, molly.jenkins@okhouse.gov, ronny.johns@okhouse.gov, cody.maynard@okhouse.gov, ellen.pogemiller@okhouse.gov, jacob.rosecrants@okhouse.gov, mark.tedford@okhouse.gov

February 10, 2025 1

Gov. Stitt’s Commerce Department Gives Multiple MILLIONS Of Taxpayer Dollars To Paycom And Love’s Through Quality Jobs Incentives

Granted, in a recommended appropriation budget of 10,060,793,526 for 2024, a million dollars here and a million dollars there, isn’t that big a deal – it’s chump change.

But then again, every dime of this money is taken by force from a working citizen of the state, ostensibly to provide services to the taxpayer – not to enrich the multibillion dollar corporations of billionaires – even ones that make Oklahoma their homes.

Let’s take Paycom, for example. Paycom is an online payroll company created by Oklahoman, Chad Richison. Here is a bit about Mr. Richison from Forbes.

As you can see, Mr. Richison is personally worth over 1 billion dollars. Here are a few articles about Mr. Richison that pop up in a simple internet search:

Meet the highest paid CEO in S&P 500, Paycom’s $211M man

The billionaire CEO of Paycom just paid $26.5 million for a beachfront Malibu mansion that took 12 years to build and blends into the rocks. Take a look inside.

Paycom CEO Chad Richison donates $10 million to UCO for stadium upgrades

Unfortunately, Mr. Richison is also a liberal who is not at all shy about announcing his thoughts on state policy. For example, during the COVID nonsense, Mr. Richison wrote a letter to Governor Stitt complaining about a lack of leadership on COVID and that further restrictions must be made on business and movement in the state.

Also in 2020, Mr. Richison wrote a letter to OU saying that he was pulling his advertising because the University was essentially racist and didn’t have adequate training to establish an understanding of ‘racial equity’. Not long afterward, OU became a bastion of DEI training. But that’s not all.

In yet another letter written to the Regional University Board of Reagents, Richison criticized their pick for UCO’s University President, former Republican Lt. Governor, Todd Lamb.

Why then, has the State of Oklahoma Commerce Department given Paycom Payroll over ELEVEN MILLION dollars in taxpayer funds during the years of 2024 and 2023 and, beyond that, why has it been granting them funds since 2009?

The information above is from a very useful website called, “Subsidy Tracker” by “Good Jobs First”. If you click on the hyperlink on the left side of the spreadsheet (which can be found here), it tells the origin of the subsidy. Note, on this page, apparently Texas is providing subsidies as well, though very limited. Overwhelmingly, Paycom’s incentives are Oklahoma based.

Note, the origin of the subsidy is the “Quality Jobs Incentive” program. Though the money is dispersed through the Oklahoma Tax Commission, the Quality Jobs Incentive Program is a product of the Oklahoma Commerce Department (OCD). Here’s what the website says about the program:

The Oklahoma Quality Jobs Program serves as an incentive for companies to expand or relocate jobs to Oklahoma by providing a rebate of a portion of newly created payroll in the state. The program induces the creation of well-paid full-time jobs and promotes economic development. Companies may receive benefits during the first three years of participation while working to achieve the required payroll threshold for full qualification.

How are these grants dispersed?

The agency – in this case Paycom – that wants one of the many taxpayer subsidies dispensed though the OCD, must fill out a request. Then, at some point, the OCD Incentive Approval Committee calls them in for a meeting during which the asking business may speak. After that, the Committee adjourns to an Executive Session during which they decide how much of a grant to provide the business.

There are several problems here other than the glaringly obvious:

Who is on the Incentive Approval Committee? Internet search turned up no answers, but a concerning Frontier article – Committee approves request for state jobs incentive money by company founded by Gov. Kevin Stitt. This article states that the Committee consisted (when the article was written in 2020) of Department of Commerce Executive Director Brent Kisling and Oklahoma Tax Commission Chairman Charles Prater – both of whom were directly appointed by Governor Stitt. The third board member was Dan Ross, director of capital assets for the Office of Management and Enterprise Services.
The article mentioned above, also points out the lack of transparency in this process – all of the grants given out through the Quality Jobs Incentive Program are done so through Executive Session of the Committee. The only way to find out how much any company gets is by going to the Oklahoma Tax Commission website and scrolling through the yearly Excel files housing the HUGE number of tax dollar giveaways supported by Oklahoma citizens.
On the website where agendas are stored for the various taxpayer giveaway committees, the only agendas for a program that was created in 1993 (according to the Frontier article), are from 2024 and January 2025. Even then, five months of 2024 agendas are missing. Why?
Every agenda must be scoured to find out the names of the businesses going to the OCD with their hands out asking for taxpayer dollars. There is no searchable list, so each agenda must be read individually – if it’s available for inspection on the website.

Obviously, taxpayer dollars are being provided to certain private businesses and the taxpayer – the people funding these ‘grants’ – have to go through quite a process to find out how much of their dollars are going where. How very transparent. But then, the Frontier article is about how Governor Stitt’s mortgage company was receiving grants from the Committee he peopled to make decisions about how to give away state taxpayer dollars.

Unfortunately, this is the same for Love’s Travel Stops & Country Stores, Inc. According to Subsidy Tracker, Love’s has a large number of ‘grants’ given it by the state of Oklahoma for both 2023 and 2024. In fact, the taxpayers of Oklahoma have given Love’s Travel Stops and Country Stores EIGHT MILLION DOLLARS – $8,074,378 to be exact.

Tom and Judy Love, who together founded the Love’s dynasty here in Oklahoma, have both recently passed away (Tom in March of 2023 and Judy in November of 2024). Both Tom and Judy were tremendously generous with their self-made billions in their home state.

A story in the Oklahoman published just before Judy died, listed her as the second wealthiest self-made woman in America, pegging the Love’s net worth at over 10.2 billion dollars. It also provided a long and varied list of their philanthropy in Oklahoma, including Positive Tomorrows, the Oklahoma Hall of Fame and the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City. The Loves were also famous for their support of the Oklahoma City Thunder.

According to Forbes, the estimated revenues of the Love’s stores across the country is 24 billion dollars. Last April, Love’s announced that it would be making a billion dollar investment in updates to their facilities.

Love’s has benefited from tax credits, TIFs, grants or rebates from the states of Nebraska, Colorado, Mississippi, Virginia., Iowa, Illinois and Ohio. All of these subsidies have been a mere fraction of the 8 million dollars provided by their home state of Oklahoma, however.

In 2022, a subsidiary of Love’s, the Musket Corporation, received a $10,800,000 guaranteed loan from the federal Import/Export Bank.

Love’s is on the Quality Jobs Program Incentive Approval Committee agenda for the Regular Meeting of the Committee September 19, 2024 10:00am, along with Paycom. Again, their ‘grants’ were warded via the Committee in a closed door Executive session.

One last piece of information collected by the Oklahoma Commerce Department, indicates that neither Love’s, nor Paycom is in the top 10 hiring companies in Oklahoma. Which begs the question – why are so many millions given to both multiBILLION dollar private corporations for ‘quality jobs’? Paycom is number 25 and Love’s is even lower at 31. Consequently, taxpayers are paying for job recruitment and retention for two billionaire corporations of Oklahoma billionaires that aren’t even top 10 employers in the state.

The number of tax dollars being dolled out to private businesses via incentives by Governor Stitt’s administration is staggering – and we’ve already reported on the unbelievable amount of tax dollars being given to wind generation companies doing business in the state. One only has to go out and look at the Excel spreadsheets of them on the Oklahoma Tax Commission website and scroll through name after name to get the scope of this Santa Claus list.

Just this week, Governor Stitt has announced that he wants to reduce and eliminate the Oklahoma income tax. That’s wonderful. No citizen of America – let alone Oklahoma – should be forced to give their hard-earned wages to their government to be redirected to private entities and other nonsense that doesn’t benefit them directly. Oklahomans should applaud that idea.

It is a cause for curiosity, however, as to how this miracle can occur until Oklahoma stops handing out the millions upon millions in tax-payer funded incentives for private business we continue to shell out on the back of the Oklahoma taxpayer, yearly.

January 31, 2025 3

OK Representative Jay Steagall Talks DRONES

Wednesday morning during our regular podcast, Rep. Jay Steagall was with me to talk about drones.

Right before Christmas, you’ll remember, there was a flurry of reported drone activity over the East Coast. Reel after reel of video taken from various places of items identified as drones was posted to social media and the news media was having near hysterics that they could be foreign in nature. I guess when you have an enormous ‘weather’ balloon known to be Chinese flying over air force bases, anything could happen, right?.

Like most good US citizens today, Rep. Steagall wasn’t buying any nonsense. He not only flies planes, he flies drones, so he knows a little bit about the issue.

During the podcast, he told us that he is part of a group that investigates similar incidences and that their investigations indicated that all the drones flying were registered with the FAA. The only reason it looked like there were so many of them was that because many people were filming the same thing from different angles and uploading it to social media. He explained that if there had been as many drones flying as the media made out, they would have been flying into each other and falling out of the sky!

Interestingly, yesterday – just before today’s show – President Trump’s new Press Secretary, Karoline Leavitt held her first press conference and the first thing she addressed was the drone ‘freak out’. She said that the drones were all authorized by the FAA – some were being flown by hobbyists, but others were performing research. Now, she didn’t delve deeply into what the ‘research’ was, but the point of the matter was that it wasn’t another ‘Chinese weather balloon’ saga.

In the clip below, Rep. Steagall gives us some background on drones before we started talking about Governor Stitt’s Executive Order to have the Department of Public Safety buy ‘drone protection equipment’ – which they did, at a cost of $30k.

We talked for quite a bit about why Oklahoma would want to have ‘drone protection equipment’ and about how the equipment that was purchased by the Department of Public Safety purchase wasn’t going to do much other than to identify where the controller to the drone was. You’ll want to watch the full live video either here on YouTube or on our Rumble channels.

Because we’d had a run-in with a drone on our property back in 2020, I asked Rep. Steagall about what to do if that ever happened again. Seriously, as tech gets better, we have to understand what great surveillance capabilities these things have – and with cameras, pictures and video can be taken and uploaded to the internet – not good things for privacy! Below is our discussion about what to do if you find a drone flying on your property without permission because, since 2022, that is a misdemeanor. It’s a short video, so watch and then put that info in your back pocket in the event you ever need it…

January 30, 2025 0

National School Choice Week Is A Taxpayer Scam

All one has to do is type in the two-word phrase “school choice” in our website’s search box to know that I’ve thought the idea of ‘school choice’ to be a scam for a very long time. Oklahoma HAS already has school choice. We have a Constitutional provision for homeschooling, we have charter schools and magnate schools and neighborhood schools and private schools and online schools – OKLAHOMA HAS IT ALL. Every Oklahoman has the ability to make whatever ‘choice’ they want by which to educate their children.

The part of the ‘school choice’ idea I DESPISE, is the part where government tells taxpayers that they’ll take our money by force and then give it to other taxpayers who ‘can’t afford’ to put their kids in a private school because public schools are so bad – the Oklahoma Parental Choice Tax Credit Program.

Why do I hate this plan? Well, again, you can always search the website to get the full scope and picture, but this post is going to include a few screeds I’ve posted to my Facebook page in the past couple days.

This is the original post. There are lots and lots and lots of comments on this post, so I suggest you peruse it. Lots of good discussion. And I’ll remind you – you may not agree with me – and that’s okay, but we’ve GOT to have discussion on this topic before it gets any further out of hand. Don’t forget, REPUBLICANS – supposed bastions of limited government – are pushing this concept hard and have been for over a decade. This is a HUGE problem.

But back to my screeds. WordPress will not let me embed the post, so you’ll just have to click the link and navigate to the post. Sorry. Stupid WordPress.

But here’s the post for today (1.28.25) copied below. It’s based in part on the conversations we were having on that post.

I’m going to go ahead and try this one more time. And I’m not being ugly here, I’m simply being stoic and direct. Some of you will think I’m ‘mean’ – and that’s fine – everyone is entitled to their opinions, however, thinking I’m ‘mean’ doesn’t invalidate my argument or the personal observations that spawned them.

It’s not up to taxpayers to ‘fix’ public schools – it’s PARENTS. Parents have all control over their own children – and I’ve argued that when legislators come in to try and ‘fix’ schools, they end up removing parental control which makes parents and their children, more wards of the state than they are already. The more the government parents parents, the less they’ll parent themselves. It’s simple human nature.

If parents were really interested in their children’s educations because they believed they could give their children something better than the education they’re getting in government schools, there would be few government schools with large student populations at this point.

For those who are compassionate about parents who are poor and have no real choices other than government-funded education – (BTW; government should be completely immune from ‘compassion’ – that’s a perspective for individuals, not governments who operate solely with money taken by force from its citizens) – then you need to be compassionate with your own dollars. You should start a school in your community that you fund – either yourself or with enough individuals willing to help out of private pocketbooks – so that poorer community members have the opportunity to attend a government school alternative.

Here’s what will happen with the majority of attendees to this school (because I found the exact same thing when I moved from being a ‘regular’ school teacher to a ‘charter’ school teacher); parents will be very motivated/active for a short time, then, they’ll stop coming to meetings and will only be reachable when their child has problems. At that point, they’ll find a way to blame you – or the school – for their child’s actions because their child wouldn’t ______ (fill in the blank). (Incidentally, I also found this at my youngest son’s homeschool co-op as well. A parent would bring their child who had been kicked out of government school to the co-op – they’d just open the car door and drop them off – when most parents would stay. There, the kid would cause problems for everyone else in the classroom and eventually be removed from the co-op too.)

Most parents today don’t want CHOICES – they want someone to take care of their children for them – they want a babysitter and/or a bankroller. Oh, they’ll fight that statement tooth and nail and scream and holler about how mean it is to say something like that, but actions speak louder than words. Why are government schools (even those in expensive neighborhoods) stuffed with parents that won’t take even a night out of their schedules to go to their school board meetings or attend a parent/teacher night? Why? Because by and large, parents are happy with whatever is going on in the school until something goes bad – their child is failing, or is being sidelined on a sports team, or is creating issues in the classroom – and once there is a problem, it suddenly becomes the school’s fault, or the teacher’s fault and SOMETHING HAS TO BE DONE.

Everything goes back to FREE WILL. We all have it – and as Christians, we should be pointing to that fact over and over and over again. If people want to do things, they do them. If they don’t, they won’t. The ‘compassion’ of using tax dollars (someone else’s money) to send kids to private schools won’t fix that.

As Jesus said in the New Testament – the poor will always be with us (Mark 14:6). Jesus knew that some people won’t make good CHOICES and that some people are too lazy, uncaring, or improperly educated enough to make good choices. Taking tax dollars from one person (maybe a person like me who homeschooled their kids and still had to pay for public schools too) and giving it to another (to do the same thing I did without ‘government help’) won’t make them CARE for their children any more than they already do. It doesn’t work, but by creating and perpetuating this system, one of the things you will do – is violate my religious conscience by sending my tax dollars to a Madrasa or a Satanist school. I’ve read the Bible. My God is a jealous God. Is it right for me to pay for the teaching of another religion?

In fact, isn’t this the same argument people (Christians?) use against the giving of public tax dollars to Planned Parenthood to perform abortions? Yup. It’s the same argument and people should realize that there is no difference in philosophy between paying for abortions and paying for people to send their kids to private schools – people just don’t want to confront the ugly truth; a large percentage of parents aren’t willing to make more of a commitment to their children’s education than what is found in their local public school. Period. That’s not an excuse for government intervention at any level.

So, look, the bottom line is this – we Republicans are either going to follow the path of limited government like has been embedded in our Platform since its near inception – or we’re going to abandon the idea of Party altogether. Right now – in my opinion – saying I’m a Republican is meaningless. I believe in the Constitution – as written, not as litigated in a court of law – and LIMITED GOVERNMENT. I also believe that any legislator who believes that taking money from citizens by force and then giving it to other taxpayers to fund an activity they could work out for themselves without access to my tax dollars is WRONG. Period. Sadly, this puts me out of sorts with so many people who believe themselves to be Republican – but that’s a problem for ALL Oklahomans – not just me.

January 28, 2025 1

While Working To Thwart A Bill To Move School Board Elections To November, Republicans Have Been Giving Away LOTS Of YOUR Tax Dollars

There was a wonderful monograph written in 1867 by Davy Crocket, who was serving in Congress at that time. It’s called, “Not Yours To Give” and it beautifully details why he argued AGAINST a bill introduced in Congress to appropriate money to a young widow of Naval officer. I URGE YOU TO READ THIS. It is very short, but in just a few pages, Crocket makes the case for why GOVERNMENT has no business giving away our tax dollars – NO MATTER HOW GOOD IT MAKES US FEEL – for items and issues which are NOT a function of government – things that don’t protect our liberty and don’t benefit the MAJORITY of taxpayers.

Below, I’ve pasted in the screenshots of just a FEW of the press releases that have come through my email account this year. Please note the amount of TAX DOLLARS that are being given away just in the few I’ve pasted in here – and this doesn’t even begin to touch the number of tax credits for businesses that our legislature dolls out.

But before we go there, let me start here.

I remember sitting in the Senate gallery in 2022. I was SHOCKED when a bill was run by Senator Jessica Garvin that would have tax dollars pay for tampons for women who couldn’t afford them.

Here’s the press release. It was literally titled, “Committee approves bill to fight period poverty“. Period poverty. Seriously. Worse even than the title, the bill would set up a revolving fund into which tax dollars would be deposited so that women who needed feminine hygiene products could have them paid for with tax dollars. She has run the bill each year since, with this bill asking for ONE MILLION DOLLARS in the revolving account.

Fortunately, it looks as though this bill will not get a hearing this year, but – knowing her history on the subject – we should expect to see it again next year; especially when there is a NATIONAL DRIVE to have tax dollars spent this way.

Why shouldn’t we fund tampons? Why shouldn’t we fund a rodeo, or brain tumor research, or the Oklahoma City National Memorial?

Who complains about our horrible roads and the lack of pay for fire and police? Lots of Oklahomans. These are legitimate functions of government, yet, when we give millions of dollars away for a prison rodeo, these are the things that get short shrifted. And if they don’t, THEN THE GOVERNMENT IS TAKING TOO MANY OF OUR DOLLARS IN TAXES IN THE FIRST PLACE!
Though brain tumors are horrible, so are all kinds of diseases – my son is a Type 1 (juvenile) diabetic – I’m not begging the legislature to give my tax dollars – AND MY NEIGHBORS – to fund diabetes research. I could give to PRIVATE RESEARCH centers if I wanted to. Private research centers raise money for ALL KINDS of research.
Private organizations should be supplying women who need feminine hygiene products, feminine hygiene products – NOT PUBLIC TAX DOLLARS. Maybe churches should go in together to fund a ‘feminine hygiene pantry’ if that’s what’s needed.
The MORE the STATE FUNDS, the poorer we ALL become. The MORE the STATE FUNDS, the less private organizations and churches do – why should they when the GOVERNMENT is doing it all for them?
BUT, bottom line, the MORE the STATE FUNDS, the bigger IT gets and the LESS LIBERTY – and money – WE CITIZENS HAVE to control our own lives.

March 13, 2024 0