For those of you advocating that the Oil & Gas industry be taxed to increase teacher pay I have a request. Would you please identify the moral principle that says it is appropriate for public school teachers to use the police power of the state to extract by force money the Oil & Gas Industry has legitimately earned, and give it to them. A moral principle is universal, it should apply across the board to everyone. If teachers may morally use the state to extract money from the O&G industry, does the same principle apply if chiropractors want to get money from MD's? Shoe salesmen want money from teachers? What is the moral principle?
Regarding Teacher Pay
- Thread starter Ponca Dan
- Start date
Sell booze on Sundays and all those taxes from that go to teachers 
You think new wells taxed at 2 PERCENT is morally and ethically justifiable? We have the lowest tax burden for energy in the country among the top 10 producers. They don’t pay their fair share.
They’re the only industry in Oklahoma getting exorbitant tax benefits and raping the state budget.
While I am on the side of increasing the production tax to the rates of surrounding oil producing states, you really didn’t answer his question.
What is the fair share? Should wind be taxed at the same rate?
How has the Oil and Gas industry, of all industries, legitimately earned anything. How does one come to own oil and gas rights without violating the NAP?
Don't think of it as teachers extracting money via police force, instead think of it as companies paying a "rent" for the privilege of operating in the society built and fostered by the state of Oklahoma.
What principle are you applying? Is it OK for shoe salesmen to demand the government tax teachers and give the money to them? If that is inappropriate, why is it appropriate for teachers to expect entrepreneurs and employees of Oil & Gas companies to be forced to pay for teacher salary increases?I'm not arguing whether teachers deserve a pay increase. I'm looking for the moral principle that allows one group of people to use the state to extract money from another group. What is the principle? Are you saying we Oklahomans are privileged to live in a society "built and fostered by the state?" That since the government "built and fostered" our society we should feel privileged to pay a ransom? Curious logic.
Because they impose their will on landowners, for one thing, as an exercise of state power. Second, they should contribute to the same society that allows them to make money and profit from a stable state. They have a literate and healthy workforce, roads, law enforcement, health care, utilities, mail, etc. and they can't just be a parasite and consume all this without contributing to its upkeep.
So can shoe salesmen use the same moral argument to extract extra pay from teachers? You are vilifying people in the O&G business, and for all I know they deserve it. But that does not address the moral principle involved. What principle allows teachers to use the state to take money from O&G?
Maybe. I'll bet some shoe salesmen have voted for income taxes before but I can't imagine a policy argument being compelling enough to tax teachers extra. Somebody could sure circulate a referendum on it and see where that provision goes, though. Maybe you should give it a go? This is Oklahoma, you're not the only guy that doesn't see a distinction between a gross production tax and taxing teachers. Harold hamm and Larry Nichols agree with you.
what'ya got against shoe salemen?
Social contract. Ever heard of it?
If he can get people to vote for it.
Ponca Dan, you are just repeating what I said and replacing the positive connotation words with negative connotation words. Yes if and oil and gas company chooses to participate in Oklahoman society they should pay for that privilege.
You never answered my question about how oil and gas profits are legitimate under the NAP.
Hmmmm. No dog in this fight, but let's start with corporate income tax. Oil and gas pays those in Oklahoma, right, just like other industries and businesses? Is that not paying "rent" for operating in the society built and fostered by the state of Oklahoma?
This can't be serious. Who assumes all of the cost and risk associated with exploration and extraction? Land and mineral rights owners? The state? Teachers?
Quite the hyperbole you've got there.
Being a land and mineral rights owner, I recall I signed a lease on all of the property that the O&G company was interested in. They paid me money for the privilege of "reserving" my land and then paid me money to drill and I make money from their gross production. All I did was say yes and sign.
Correct, but the state as sovereign gets to decide what rent it charges. I am operating under that principle that taxes enacted by a democratic process are just and legitimate, if not always optimal.
Sure in the normal people world that you and I live in, where taxes are legitimate and schools are a public good. But in the upside down purely libertarian world of Ponca Dan there is something called the non-aggression principle, that they can never quite square with the private ownership of land and natural resources.
Good lord, I’m mostly on the side of the board’s left, it’s crazy town.
My belief here is that all corporations should pay no income tax, but if we are forcing them to, it should be the same across the board. When it comes to production tax, which I believe should be applied to the extraction of natural resources, it should also be applied equally. We should place the 7% tax back on O&G but not single them out. I assume you agree that wind should be taxed at the same rate, correct?
When shoe salesman go into childrens’ classrooms and teach propaganda like the OERB, you’ll make some sense with this.
So, taxing an author by each word that goes into the book they sell for their income makes sense? Tax them as they produce the book as well as after they sell it?
How about taxing farmers for each plant that grows in addition to their income from the sale of their produce?
Taxing restaurants for each chicken breast they cook in addition to the income they receive from the sale of the chicken breast?
If production taxes are going to be the savior of education in Oklahoma we should be looking at more than oil and gas. There's an enormous world of production that we're overlooking.
"Roughly one-quarter of all jobs in Oklahoma are tied to the energy industry, either directly or indirectly, says Mickey Hepner, an economist and Dean of the University of Central Oklahoma’s College of Business Administration."
https://stateimpact.npr.org/oklahoma/tag/energy-industry/
While discussing how the Oil and Gas industry doesn't really support the state well enough, take the above into account.
https://stateimpact.npr.org/oklahoma/tag/energy-industry/
While discussing how the Oil and Gas industry doesn't really support the state well enough, take the above into account.
You're wasting your time. They're all in on Obama's mantra of "you didn't build that".
Don't need to. Philosophically speaking, if we tax one industry on "production," we can tax them all on production.
I'm all in on production taxes to pay for everything. We can tax oil and gas well production to pay teacher salaries and we can tax teacher lesson planning to pay for local pot hole repair. The taxation of production seems nearly limitless in possibilities.
One area we could make a shit ton of money is taxing the production of legal documents by attorneys. They love words and frivolous stuff.
I know. My post regarding taxation of specific production was rhetorical. I guess I should have explicitly stated that and saved you a post.
I'm just waiting for the argument against production taxes.
Lots of pragmatic reasons not to tax production, for one they disincentivize production.
Very true and you'll hear no argument from me on that point. Incentivizing production is what brought about the 2% production tax on new wells for 7 years. Incentivize drilling of new wells in an economic slump. You already know that so my post isn't "aimed" at you.
But I'm not one to villianize an industry as part of a political agenda either, so I'm able to see the pros and cons. As I posted, I'm waiting for the argument against production taxes of industries outside of oil and gas.
A number of the Oklahoma wind credits have already been eliminated. That argument just rationally doesn’t play well.... Also, Oklahoma wind energy is already a top national producer. It’s nonsensical not to invest in a locally abundant clean energy source. We have the potential to dominate the country in that industry, but that’s not likely to happen now.
When you consider the balance of both tax burden and environmental impact (“liberal” blah blah blah), the 2 industries don’t compare, let alone factoring in the actual colleteral HUMAN impact (deadly accidents).
https://www.readfrontier.org/storie...n-for-number-of-pipeline-spills-federal-data/
When you consider the balance of both tax burden and environmental impact (“liberal” blah blah blah), the 2 industries don’t compare, let alone factoring in the actual colleteral HUMAN impact (deadly accidents).
https://www.readfrontier.org/storie...n-for-number-of-pipeline-spills-federal-data/
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So the production tax on O&G is a penalty?
Sorry to have abandoned the thread, had to work. O&G should contribute to society that allows them to make money and profit from a stable state. (As an aside, how stable is our state?) OK, they should contribute to society, but why should they be the only ones that have to contribute to teacher pay raises? Would it be fair to say teachers should be required to pay money for shoe salesmen pay raises? No one should have to go without shoes, right? What principle are you invoking to demand one industry be required to pay the expenses of another? The principle should be universal. It should apply to one and all. If it applies to teacher pay raises, it should also apply to shoe salesmens' pay raises, should it not? If not, why not? What's the principle?
You speak of a compelling argument. (Interesting choice of words, compelling.) What's the compelling argument requiring one segment of society be compelled to prop up another? Besides the "compelling" argument that the state will compel them to do so?
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Have something against them? Nothing! I think they should demand the state to require school teachers be taxed extra and give it to them. Nothing against shoe salesmen!
Ah, Rousseau's social contract. Good old Rousseau, the father of collectivism.
"If he can get people to vote for it." That's your moral principle? If enough people vote to force an industry to pay extra taxes it is morally acceptable to you? Please rethink your understanding of morality!
I'm not sure what you regard as the positive connotation of words that advocate using the police power of the state to force one person or industry pay extra taxes to benefit another person or industry that had nothing to do with the first person's or industry's legitimate monetary earnings, just because the second person or industry wants it. Is there as positive connotation to my words if I convince the state to take money from you, money you have earned without on iota of contribution from me, and have them give it to me? Where's the positive connotation?
When Oklahoma oil and gas has the worst tax burden in the country for top producers and a multi-million dollar budget deficit, it’s highly questionable that it’s O&G who’s being penalized. A 7 percent GPT (which is still more than 1 percent less than Texas, for instance) would simply be somewhat competitive. Louisiana’s oil and gas tax burden is more than 13 percent...that hasn’t stopped companies from making profits there. Oklahoma’s tax burden? 3.2 percent.
Heck could do away with oil and gas tax credits, just for starters. That’s only millions of dollars in giveaways.
Oil and gas companies are cloaked with governmental power. They can enter onto your land to survey it to build a pipeline they want. You can't stop them. They can enter on you to drill a well. You can't stop them. They can force-pool your minerals and make you take a deal you don't want to exploit your resource. You can't stop them. Teachers can mobilize and ask for taxes to pay them, just like the oil and gas industry has successfully lobbied for the right to take school teachers' property if they think they can monetize it.
My question for you is why are you so concerned about oIl and gas companies being treated unfairly as opposed to the people that they make money from? Why aren't your anarchist sensibilities roused at little people having their property taken against their will so the oil companies can make money?
The reason I don't have a problem with the gross production tax is because government makes it possible for oil companies to make money from other people's property whether the citizenry likes it or not. We can debate that all day, it's just the way it is. That industry receives a special benefit from the government that the rest of us don't receive, so it's fair they give a little bit back. If school teachers make money by taking my property against my will, I'd look at taxing them more too, I guess.
Where are you getting the idea libertarians can't square private ownership of land and natural resources? Are you saying a "natural resource" is public property, and the public has a moral claim of any natural resource on land that I own? Is dirt a natural resource? Does the state get to take the dirt off my land by claiming it is a natural resource? But that is completely off the original topic, on which I beseech you to remain. What is the moral principle that allows one entity to get the state to use its law enforcement apparatus to take by force the money of another, solely for the benefit of the first entity? Disregard the evilness of the industry from which the property is being taken. That is irrelevant to the discussion. Disregard that "other states do it." Disregard that we should "bring it up to the level of other states." None of that is germane to the question. Can you answer the question?
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I agree we should tax O&G but you want the tax to be a penalty. I want to tax ALL energy production fairly. They should all pay their fair share.
