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Senate President Pro Tem Lonnie Paxton is “100 percent on board” with Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt’s proposed half-percent income tax cut – but it’s a cautious 100 percent. 

Paxton told The Frontier that recent Board of Equalization figures, which show Oklahoma’s budget to be short of expectations following last year’s grocery tax cut, make him wary of the possibility of a return to the state’s budget woes of last decade. 

“I can easily say I’m 100% in favor of an income tax cut,” Paxton told The Frontier.

But he also remembers when the state was facing a more than $1 billion budget deficit in 2016.   Stitt has pushed for “half and a path,” his term for a half-percent cut  and a path toward eventually eliminating personal income taxes. Recent Board of Equalization figures show Oklahoma’s revenue projections are less than anticipated, though the state has about $4.6 billion in reserves. Those figures come after the state eliminated its portion of the grocery tax last year, which resulted in a loss of more than $400 million in tax revenue. Stitt, while urging a cut to personal income taxes, has also called for state agencies to have flat budgets for this fiscal year.

On this episode of Listen Frontier, I talk to Paxton about what an income tax cut might mean - both good and bad - for Oklahomans.

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