OK PolicyCast

We spoke with DeVon Douglass, the Chief Resilience Officer for the City of Tulsa, about the work her team is doing to take on Tulsa's toughest challenges, from teen homelessness to deep inequities in housing, transportation, and education. Their recent Tulsa Equality Indicators report assesses many of the barriers to a good life and better opportunities for Tulsans — but DeVon's not only working to describe the problems. She tells us how the Tulsa city and community is gearing up to take on inequality in a comprehensive way.

You can subscribe to our podcast on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, SoundCloud, or RSS. The podcast theme music is by Zébre. If you have any questions for the OK PolicyCast, topics you'd like us to cover, or people you want us to interview, you can reach us at [email protected].

The OK PolicyCast is back! In this episode, we look at what just happened in one of the most tumultuous legislative years in Oklahoma history. Bailey Perkins speaks about what it was like being at the state Capitol before, during, and after the teacher walkout. Carly Putnam shares some major developments in health care policy. And Ryan Gentzler talks about this year's most important criminal justice legislation, both the good and the bad.

You can subscribe to our podcast on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, or RSS. The podcast theme music is by Zébre. If you have any questions for the OK PolicyCast, topics you'd like us to cover, or people you want us to interview, you can reach us at [email protected].

Now that we're just past the halfway point in the Legislative session, Kara Joy and Gene talk about which key bills are still alive, which are dead, and what's at play in negotiations over the state budget. To find out how you can take action on bills during the rest of session, see OK Policy's Advocacy Alerts page, and to join efforts for a better Oklahoma state budget, visit Together Oklahoma.

Today on the OK PolicyCast, we speak with Shay White, a social worker and advocate with Together Oklahoma and ACTION. She spoke to us about what motivated her to get involved with policy change, what keeps her going, and "that one thing that gets us up every morning."

If you have any questions for the OK PolicyCast, topics you'd like us to cover, or people you want us to interview, you can reach us at [email protected].

Extra links:

• Together Oklahoma
• ACTION Tulsa
• VOICE OKC

We speak with OK Policy health care analyst Carly Putnam about the new plan from the House GOP to replace the Affordable Care Act. We talk about how the bill does and doesn't change the Affordable Care Act, what chance it has to pass, and how it could affect Oklahomans' health care.

Extra Links:

• House Tax Credits Would Make Health Insurance Far Less Affordable in High-Cost States (Center on Budget and Policy Priorities)

On this episode we speak with Jill Webb, an attorney with the Tulsa County Public Defender's office. She gives us a tour of how the real criminal justice system is different from popular ideas about police and the courts, embodied by shows like Law and Order.

Extra links:

• Where Americans are sent to prison most (New York Times)
• The Cost Trap: How Excessive Fees Lock Oklahomans Into the Criminal Justice System without Boosting State Revenue: Executive Summary (OK Policy)

The OK PolicyCast is back!

Governor Fallin surprised many observer of Oklahoma politics by calling for dramatic revenue increases and major tax reforms in her State of the State address. In this podcast, we discuss the Governor's ideas, what's most likely to make it through the Legislature, and what other ideas Oklahoma Policy Institute has put forward to fix our state's budget hole.

Extra links:

• Governor Fallin's Executive Budget proposal - https://www.ok.gov/OSF/documents/bud18.pdf
• OK Policy statement on Governor Fallin's proposals - http://okpolicy.org/statement-lawmakers-heed-governor-fallins-call-fix-structural-deficit/
• OK Policy's revenue options for a better budget - http://okpolicy.org/2017-policy-priority-revenue-options-better-budget/
• Planet Money episode on the Trump administration's proposed 'border adjustment tax' - http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/02/01/512921756/episode-751-the-thing-about-that-border-tax

This October, Stanford University's Dr. David Grusky visited Oklahoma for a talk at the University of Tulsa. Dr. Grusky's books include Social Stratification, Occupy the Future, The New Gilded Age, The Great Recession, The Inequality Reader, and The Inequality Puzzle. His presentation at TU was titled, "A Blueprint for Ending Poverty... Permanently." Dr. Grusky also spent some time with OK Policy's staff discussing how the research on poverty and inequality is inspiring an ambitious new effort to end poverty in California.

This week we speak with Kate Richey of OK Policy and the Oklahoma Assets Network on her research into payday lending in Oklahoma and how it can trap families in a vicious cycle of debt.

On Wednesday, March 4 there will be a Town Hall Forum on predatory lending in Oklahoma. A local panel of experts will discuss how payday lenders target military families, older Oklahomans, single parent households, and other vulnerable communities and demographics. Click here for more information and to RSVP.

This week we share a panel discussion from OK Policy's 2015 State Budget Summit. In recent years Oklahoma has seen among the lowest unemployment and highest personal income growth in the nation. At the same time, there's evidence that is rising tide is not lifting all boats. Oklahomans continue to struggle with relatively high levels of poverty, low educational attainment, and falling behind on many measures of quality of life.

In this informative and wide-ranging discussion, panelists Shelley Cadamy (Workforce Tulsa), Dr. Mickey Hepner (University of Central Oklahoma), Chuck Hoskin Jr. (Cherokee Nation), Rep. Dennis Casey (Oklahoma House of Representatives), and Dr. Dan Rickman (Oklahoma State University) share their insights about what's really going on in Oklahoma's economy.