Four stories that were trending or generated discussion online or on KGOU’s social media platforms during the past week.
University of Oklahoma president David Boren is leading a grassroots initiative to petition lawmakers to put a penny sales tax proposal before Oklahoma voters. If it’s approved, it would generate more than $600 million annually toward education. But critics say sales taxes are regressive, and would put teacher pay raises on the backs of the poorest Oklahomans while making the state’s sales tax one of the highest in the nation.
Reader Danni D. Waddell writes: This is a problem with state owned schools. We need a different more direct way that these schools can be administered so that the state isn't the one "approving" raises for teachers.
Then each community could raise a sales tax specific to the needs of the community.
On Wednesday, one of Oklahoma’s most historically stable energy companies announced it would lay off workers before the end of the first quarter, which ends March 31. Devon Energy’s CEO Dave Hager announced the move to employees during a town hall meeting at the Cox Convention Center, saying it comes due to oil and natural gas prices that started their precipitous fall at the end of 2014. Last year Oklahoma City energy giants Chesapeake Energy and SandRidge also announced significant reductions in their workforces.
Political Scientist Mackenzie Israel-Trummel Examines Race, Identity Politics Ahead Of 2016 Election
As part of KGOU’s new limited-run series Race Matters, produced in partnership with the literary magazine World Literature Today, host Merelyn Bell and University of Oklahoma political scientist Mackenzie Israel-Trummel discussed issues of race and ethnicity on the mind of voters heading into the 2016 presidential election. The discussion came just days before Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump visited Oklahoma. Trump has vocally supported proposals to crack down on immigration by building a wall between the U.S.-Mexican border, and ban Muslims from entering the United States.
Interested in perspectives on racial issues like this case? Check out the new program from @kgounews and @worldlittoday: @racemattersshow
— Carl Albert Center (@CarlAlbertCtr) January 12, 2016
For months, NPR’s Howard Berkes has been examining workers’ compensation issues in Texas and Oklahoma. In a piece that aired Thursday on Morning Edition, Berkes found 1.5 million workers in Texas and Oklahoma don't have state-regulated workers' compensation to turn to when they're injured on the job.
Reader Nichole Silver Beaulieu wrote on NPR’s Facebook page: How is this even legal? Is our government even working at all for us at all now? If you're hurt on the job, it is the responsibility of the establishment to ensure you're taken care of. No matter what chains the far right may rattle, it is excessively difficult to fake workmans comp claims, having seen it up close with a family member, it can take months and years to confirm and never for the benefit of those hurt in site. One weird opportunist and media bite does not make an epidemic. Tragic. We pay for roads, schooling, community upkeep, welfare and corporations just keep sucking funds, subsidies, and lives out of the country. Shame on state lawmakers.
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