To accomplish this post, I'm going to look at Mary Fallin's campaign website. She also has a more in depth State website than Dorman but since I only looked at Dorman's campaign site, I saw this as more fair.
Also, since we have experienced her as governor, she uses a list of accomplishments instead of goals / platforms. I'll analyze these in short order. The Governor lists 12 accomplishments (pretty proud of herself, I miss Dorman's five short and sweet already): fiscal responsibility, economy and jobs, government efficiency, education, energy and environment, infrastructure, healthcare, sanctity of life, veterans, vulnerable Oklahomans, 2nd amendment, and agriculture. Did you get all that? There will be a quiz later...
Fiscal Responsibility
Gotta love the mistrust of national level politics right here . . . no one will accuse Mary Fallin of borrowing money from China! Fallin's claim to fame here is that she took our rainy day fund from $2.02 to $532 million. This is an impressive increase. She also erased a $500 million dollar budget gap and has lowered taxes.
I wish that she talked in this section about how she did this grand feat. Since, I'm just focussing here on what the candidates are saying about themselves and I'm not on a grand truth check, I can't say from her blurb whether the logic here is fuzzy. When you see such big numbers, you get distrustful. I think that less is more here for her as maybe how the sausage is made is less sexy than when it's presented to you on a bun. I don't know if that metaphor worked but I'm leaving it.
Economy and Jobs
Unemployment rates have fallen from 7.0% to 5.3% in Oklahoma. This is faster than the national average but make no mistake: it is falling damned near everywhere. Fallin claims this is due to tax cuts, shrinking government, and reducing regulations on job cuts. Are we sure that these items are really helping? If the government shrinks, doesn't that cause some people to lose their jobs? Also, when I read "cutting regulations," I think "making it easier to drill baby drill" and a 0% unemployment rate isn't worth making Oklahoma a fracking mess.
Personal wealth is also up 8.1% here compared to 5.7% nationally. Again, this could just be a fluke, the numbers are close. Money goes farther here than somewhere like San Francisco, maybe our faster growth is because the actual dollars are less and the percent raises more quickly.
The Governor again brags about cut taxes. Personally, I'd rather see more services provided by the state than a few more dollars in my pocket, but I think that's the blue coming out.
Next, there is information on lawsuit reform and worker's compensation. Paging Dave Engel, I don't know anything about this. If you are reading, will you comment or share on Facebook. I don't feel educated enough to really critique whether the reforms were worthwhile or if they would have happened with or without her.
Lastly, she brags about OKJobMatch.com. I know I said that I was sticking to what I read, but I lied. I have used this website before and it sucks. I've used it for two reasons. I work at OKDHS and our higher ups want us to pimp out the site to our clients and because I'm graduating soon with a graduate degree and if I don't become management where I work, I am likely to look for another job. The website crashed three times for me while looking at job postings and showed me anything ranging from engineer to doctor jobs because the general search feature was sorely lacking options. Full discloser: I did not create a profile and maybe it gets better, but if one of my clients does what I did, they will give up before creating a profile too.
Government and Efficiency
Fallin touts consolidated and improved government services by reducing the size of government bureaucracy. As a government bureaucrat, I have a pretty negative opinion of what I have seen so far. One of the downsides is that IT services of different agencies have been "streamlined" by making one IT agency. This has made getting tech support incredibly difficult and led to a lot of wasted time by me personally. What they are saving in consolidation feels like might be wasted in time spent by those with IT issues. Additionally, many higher ups in our agency were cut and all had to reinterview for their jobs. A lot of good people lost their jobs a few years away from retirement. Considering years served by these fine people, I think the State did them a big disservice.
Education
First, the Governor is leading a National Education, Workforce, and Jobs Initiative. This is incredibly important and Oklahomans need higher education. However, we are also seeing cuts in funding for higher education funding. Is this an example of mouth and hand doing separate things? She is also trying to raise the number of Degrees and Certificates offered in Oklahoma. This is good news, however, the skeptic in me wonders if more equals better or if a focus on better accreditation for existing programs wouldn't be more useful.Some controversial things listed: she brags on the grading system for schools although I know many urban schools have disagreed with the details attached to the grading scale. I like the idea of grading scales, but I'd like to see a scale that fits the schools. The website also includes her accomplishments on common core. Personally, that is the only time I have been proud of our current Governor. She led the way nationally and helped develop these standards (they were not done federally, they were done by the National Governors Association). I'd love to see a more nationalized education system where my child can move from State to State and learn the same things. I've heard a lot of arguments about a kid in Oklahoma and a kid in NYC don't necessarily need to learn the same things. In an increasingly globalized society, this is bull. Kids born here should have the skills necessary to move and get fantastic jobs all over the world. In fact, if this were the case, the opposite would happen. Educated parents want that kind of education for their children and will come here and demand high tech jobs to follow.
Agriculture
Fallin was willing to accept printed money based off of loans from China for hurting Oklahoma farmers proving that Federal Assistance can be put to good use if balanced. That sounded snarky, but I actually agree with that sentiment and am glad that this was done. I just love snark.
Energy and Environment
Natural Gas, Natural Gas, Natural Gas. We have it, it burns clean, and we want to use it / sell it. One positive is a focus on promoting CNG commercial / fleet vehicles across the State. I champion this. The downside is that the Oklahoma First Energy Plan is really only Oklahoma first if you are thinking fiscally. I'd love to see higher taxes (more in line with progressive States) on Oil / Natural Gas companies. I'd also like to see stringent regulations on hydraulic fracturing. Look at Ohio... they are a mess due to hydraulic fracturing. I'd love to stay beautiful and do more research on what appears to be a looming earthquake threat.
Infrastructure
She clearly doesn't have a lot of examples of success stories, so instead we look ahead to 2018 when our bridges will hopefully not be killing us. Oklahoma's infrastructure problems did not start with Fallin and I can't blame her for all our failing bridges and poor roads. I do want to see a huge push on this front from a candidate though. It is an important public safety issue.
Healthcare
Guess what! Fallin initially supporting a grant applied for by Governor Henry for Medicaid expansion that Fallin initially supported then didn't isn't addressed. Obamacare is bad, ok? There are lots of small improvements that have been made on her site. I can't help but wonder if Medicaid expansion might make a lot of them non-issues. We saved Insure OK instead of allowing more assistance from a State exchange. We're improving health nominally while keeping the poor out of reach of basic health services.
Obamacare is not going anywhere. What I want to see is a candidate who will admit this fact, champion a state-ran exchange (because the National one sucks and because if we run it ourselves, we know what Oklahomans need, and we give our State more control (keep those Feds out, right?)). We won't get much of this from Dorman either, he seems to be against the ACA as well.
Veterans
Well, I can't get away from OKJobmatch, can I? I just don't think that this infant program is going to increase job growth in this demographic yet. I want a governor who is tough on Washington and is pushing to see certifications received in the armed services (such as commercial truck licenses and EMT training) as equivalent trainings in the civilian world. If a vet can save me while bullets fly by his/her head, I want them in that ambulance.
I really like the idea of offering all vets in-state tuition at Oklahoma universities, even I can't snark here. Good on ya, Gov! Also, the VA needs all the help it can get (and less rope to hang itself), so more funding and more work streamlining can't possibly be a bad thing.
Vulnerable Oklahomans
I have a hard time reading that our Governor is doing much to fight hunger in Oklahoma when she and our legislature went ahead with SNAP reform (adding a work requirement for able-bodied adults without dependents) before being forced to do so from National agencies. Of course extra money needed to be pumped into food banks, they are becoming more strained than ever before.
I'm glad that sentence reform is being addressed here but more needs to be done. The Oklahoma court system needs to focus on rates of recidivism, ability to reform, and the severity of crimes. I'm ready to see a real debate on legalization of marijuana and a move away from locking up recreation drug users. Money saved in this regard could be pumped in to State-funded rehabilitation centers with some rewards for those who stay clean and education on responsible drug use. With marijuana illegal, it is impossible to talk to the public about responsible use. Our only method of education is abstinence and we see how useful that is for sex education.
Sanctity of Life
I struggle speaking about this subject. As a man, I feel like the choices that women make when it comes to sex, birth control, and abortion are things that are none of my business. As a political writer, philosopher, and informed adult, I am sometimes put in a place where I have to.
I am pro-choice. I have a hard time with that because in my personal life, I really wouldn't want my own child to be aborted. However, all children aren't my children. No uterus is my own uterus. If a woman wants to terminate something that cannot exist without the support of her own body, I don't really see a problem here. Also, the governor signed a bill (based on incomplete science) that verifies that after 20 weeks in utero, a fetus is able to live outside the womb and is not eligible for abortion. I am all for setting limits and a fetal bill of rights, but I'd like to see it based on better science. A fetus cannot live devoid of intervention at 20 weeks. Instead, I'd look at brainwaves and a better definition of when life begins (scientifically not religiously).2nd Amendment
America is so obsessed with guns. People who are for them seem to see a constitutional reason they should own an RPG and those against them think that the only thing guns can be used for is shooting children in classrooms.I just don't share this obsession. Full disclosure, I have owned guns but do not currently. As a young boy, I owned a BB gun, then pellet gun, then .22 caliber rifle. I respected it as a tool. I have shot dozens of types of guns and am informed enough about them to know that people are scared of AR-15's because they are plastic and look scary but tons of normal hunting rifles are much more powerful. Fallin uses this section to rev up the base because she has signed every pro gun that hit her desk (good thing Guns for Infants Act of 2012 didn't make the cut, that decision would have been rough).
This is just such a non-issue for me. Americans seem to want guns. They aren't going anywhere and no politician will get the clout to take them from you in my lifetime. So, let's focus on conducting research on what needs to be done to make children safer, let's streamline gun education and purchases. Let's look into databases and ways to keep guns away from the insane and the criminal. Let's do what we can to make people safer with guns because we are not taking them away.
Sorry for the delay guys. I've been busy. I hope to write more and publish tomorrow. As previously stated, I'm on vacation from my real job, so I should be able to show my readers some love.
Please comment below if you'd like. Then, bring the discussion to the Facebook page to talk about what you liked, what you didn't, and how stupid I am.
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