Oklahoma is a poster child for the failure of trickle down economics. Mind you, few leaders in this ruby red state will admit that. In fact, many earnestly believe in that long discredited economic theory. Their policies have led to the state’s long slide toward the bottom of the barrel in its relative quality of life.

What is Trickle Down?

The idea is that tax breaks, financial benefits, and deregulation for corporations and the wealthy will stimulate the overall economy. By keeping more money at the top, the theory assumes the wealthy will invest in businesses, create jobs, and eventually “trickle down” prosperity to the working class.

The downsides include wealth hoarding, where top earners often use extra money for stock buybacks or savings, so it never reaches lower-income groups. Trickle down policies also tend to concentrate wealth at the top, increasing the income gap between the rich and the poor. In Oklahoma, it has gutted education and health care, leading to the state’s abysmal rankings in those areas.

Mike Mazzei, the Republican gubernatorial candidate in the November 2026 election, squeaked by his more moderate opponent in a primary runoff in late August 2026. Mazzei ran on a platform of yet more trickle down nonsense while loaning around $12 million of his own money to his campaign. After being endorsed by Donald Trump, Mazzei received 186,678 votes versus 184,631 for Gentner Drummond, winning by a tiny margin of 2,047 votes, or 0.28%.

Bear in mind there are almost 1.3 million registered Republicans in Oklahoma, so less than 30% of them bothered to vote, and Mazzei’s primary runoff supporters represented less than 8% of the state’s registered voters. However, given the partisanship in Oklahoma and immense voter apathy, he could easily become the next governor if Democrats and Independents don’t show up at the polls in November.

Mazzei’s Farcical “Plan”

Mazzei touts a “plan” to eliminate the state income tax in three years while also phasing out property taxes for seniors and veterans. The income tax provides roughly $6 billion in funding, or about 1/3 of the state’s budget. In 2025, the Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy found that eliminating Oklahoma’s personal income tax would provide the richest 1% with an average annual tax cut of $55,295. The middle 20% of Oklahomans would only get a cut of $1,500. The poorest 20% would actually see their taxes increase by $9, since that would eliminate tax code components that return money to low-income residents. Does that sound fair to you?

Cutting property taxes as Mazzei proposes would reduce revenues for local school districts and city and county governments by around $250 million each year. That would mean severe cuts for schools, career tech, county roads and city streets, police, sheriff and health departments, courts, public libraries, etc. Bear in mind that Oklahoma already spends far less per pupil than any other state in the region, which is a major factor in it being ranked 47th in the nation in education.

An important reality is that Oklahoma already has by far the lowest tax burden in the region, without any of Mazzei’s crazed cutting.

Mazzei and his ilk love to point out how Texas has no income tax, but they conveniently never mention how its overall tax burden is considerably higher than Oklahoma’s. How is that possible? Texas has extremely high property, sales, and excise taxes.

Oklahomans are already going to vote on SQ 843 in November, which would eliminate property taxes on homesteads. The concept is bizarre, given that Oklahoma’s property taxes are already 46th in the nation. The only state in our region with lower property taxes is Arkansas, which has a much higher overall tax burden thanks to sales and excise taxes that are even higher than those in Texas, and a higher income tax burden than ours to boot.

If SQ 843 somehow passes, that will eliminate somewhere between $1.2 billion and $1.5 billion in local revenues and simply pulverize our public schools, CareerTechs, county road and bridge funds, city street and park funds, local police, sheriff departments and courts, volunteer fire departments and ambulance services, public libraries, and health departments.

Mazzei’s overall plan is, incredibly, far worse than even that, yet he offers no reasonable method for making up the enormous deficits it would create. He claims without evidence that county governments can “afford a decrease in tax collections” and the state can “capture growth-driven revenue” while “local voters get to decide if they want to replace lost tax collections”. That last bit translates into forcing school districts and city and county governments to ask voters for enormous property and sales tax increases.

Mazzei Knows His Plan is Nuts

During Mazzei’s time in the state Senate from 2004 to 2016, Oklahoma’s top marginal income tax rate was lowered from 6.65% to 5.0%. That led to declared revenue failures in 2009, 2010, 2015, twice in 2016, 2017, and 2018. Funding for the public schools and other state-funded services were repeatedly cut.

It was already so bad by early 2016 that Mazzei himself tried, in SB 1073, to delay a cut in the state income tax from 5.25% to 5.0%. He stated at that time: “Since 2004, when I first came to the Senate, we’ve reduced taxes by about $1.5 billion, thanks to a 25 percent drop in the top income tax rate, the elimination of estate taxes, the increase in the standard deduction, higher exemptions for retirement income, fewer companies subjected to the franchise tax, and the 100 percent exemption for military. … We are facing a shortfall of $1.3 billion. If we don’t delay this reduction and adopt other reforms, education funding, which makes up some 50 percent of the budget, will have to be cut by approximately $400 million. Other core services will also be slashed. Ultimately everyone in the state will be negatively impacted. As a fiscal conservative, I would much rather delay a tax cut than vote to increase taxes and start new taxes.”

The situation deteriorated so much that, two years after Mazzei was forced out of the senate by term limits, Bartlesville Public Schools led a statewide effort that successfully pressured a 75% supermajority of both houses in the legislature to pass $520 million in annual revenue increases by increasing taxes on gasoline, diesel, gross production, and cigarettes while limiting itemized deductions, expanding collections from online retailers, and allowing dice and roulette games at tribal casinos. That was only time the legislature was able to clear the 75% supermajority bar to raise taxes imposed by SQ 640 back in 1992.

That heroic act finally stabilized the state budget, although since then the legislature has continued to erode the tax base through additional income tax cuts, eliminating state sales taxes on groceries, various exemptions, and the like.

Yet now Mazzei’s back, with a plan that would eliminate over $6 billion in state funding? The truth is that he knows that the legislature will never pass his ludicrous plan. He is just spouting nonsense to get elected, but do not doubt that he will promote policies and bills to further cripple the state’s public schools and other services across all levels of government.

Needless to say, I won’t be voting for Crazy Mazzei in November; Cindy Munson will get my vote.

However, over half of Oklahoma voters are registered Republicans and many Democrats and Independents are too apathetic to vote.

We’re currently 47th in Education and 48th in Healthcare. Mazzei won’t help us improve in either ranking…and if he gets his way, we’ll be dead last, having gone belly up with trickle down.