Stan Geiger

Oklahomans Wising Up

According to recent poll numbers, there may be hope for this state yet. Nearly half of participants say they want lawmakers to pull their heads out of their behinds, stop giving the state away to educators and start to work fixing our ever-deteriorating infrastructure.

Courtesy of Mike McCarville:

The latest edition of The Sooner Survey reports Oklahomans want legislators to fix their roads and bridges before doing anything else, a shift in past public opinion that has favored pay raises for teachers as their first funding option.

Survey Director Pat McFerron writes, "Fully 46% of those surveyed say that speeding up funding for road and bridge repairs should be the top priority for the legislature, while 32% said giving teachers a $1,200 a year pay raise should take to top spot. Additionally, 9% wanted to build more prisons so criminals are not released early and 4% favored increasing investment in our state universities."

I can't believe 32 percent would still say giving school teachers pay raises is more important than fixing crumbling bridges that threaten to kill people. But then, there are so many school teachers on the payroll, and so many relatives of school teachers, it's probably a difficult task to do a random survey without getting a strong pay-the-teachers more number.

Meanwhile, support for more money for universities is virtually nonexistent. It seems people feel we've dedicated enough money to making millionaires out of university employees.

It's taken longer than it should have, but it appears Oklahomans are finally wising up.

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