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Oklahoma Senate
Statement by Senator Stratton Taylor, President Pro Tempore: Senator Taylor Comments on Keating Temper Tantrum
Statement by Senator Stratton Taylor, President Pro Tempore
Senator Taylor Comments on Keating Temper Tantrum
On Keating's Complaint about the "Do Nothing" Approach to his agenda:
"When all you have are bad ideas on the table, sometimes nothing is the best thing to do for the people of Oklahoma. We weren't elected to be a rubber stamp for the Governor. It's our job to pass good legislation and kill bad ideas, not to serve as mindless cheerleaders for the executive branch. That's how a representative democracy differs from a dictatorship."
"As is his habit, Governor Keating is guilty of a gross exaggeration when he claims that nothing has been accomplished this year. I don't think it was a 'do-nothing' Legislature that passed a tax relief bill to bail out our ailing energy industry. It wasn't a 'do nothing' Legislature that passed a mental health parity bill. It wasn't a 'do nothing' Legislature that passed emergency legislation to protect tornado victims from price gouging."
"Governor Keating is just throwing his annual temper tantrum, the same routine he performs every year at this point of the session when he hasn't gotten every single thing he's requested. He's like the little kid who threatens to hold his breath until he gets everything he wants from the candy store. Eventually, he'll turn blue in the face, take another breath and life will go on. Without the candy."
On Governor Keating's call for education mandates like 4x4:
"I'm reluctant to hand down a bunch of unfunded mandates to the public schools at a time when we're not even properly funding the things they're required to do now. Some schools are so strapped that they're having to share textbooks, use outdated school buses and pack kids into overcrowded classrooms. This just isn't a good time to give them another list of mandates without any funding to pay for them."
"No matter how you juggle the numbers, reforms and new initiatives cost money. And the sad truth this year is we don't have much money for education or anything else. I think the most prudent thing to do is put as much money into education as possible and save any new mandates for another day when we have sufficient funding to pay for them."
"Until he makes a solid commitment to pull Oklahoma's education spending out of the basement, I'm afraid Governor Keating isn't going to get all the bumper sticker mandates he's pushing. On the Governor's watch, we've dropped to 50th in school spending. Sometimes I wonder if Governor Keating won't be satisfied until he drives us down to 51st.
"Our Governor needs to take a cue from his Republican colleague in Texas. George Bush is working to pump billions of new dollars into the Texas public schools. Governor Keating, on the other hand, is trying to saddle Oklahoma schools with a series of unfunded mandates and no significant new funding. If that's the Governor's idea of leadership, our state is in big trouble."
