Oklahoma City's poor forced to pay so millionaires can play

OKLAHOMA CITY — "Free Lunch," by David Cay Johnston, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter for The New York Times, documents "how the wealthiest Americans enrich themselves at government expense (and stick you with the bill)."

That's why Oklahoma City residents recently experienced a massive transfer of wealth from the poor and middle classes to the superrich owners of the Seattle SuperSonics. A ballot measure that passed March 4 will raise $121 million in sales taxes to "fancy up" a practically new building in town with luxury skyboxes, rooftop gardens and more, in an attempt to lure the Sonics to Oklahoma City.

This scheme to enrich one Oklahoma City billionaire and several millionaires will gouge the poor by forcing them to pay more for groceries, utilities and other necessities. Cost to each average Oklahoma City resident will be about $150.

The Oklahoma City Council shamelessly called for this immoral election even though the cost of groceries is rising at twice the rate of inflation; Oklahoma is one of seven states to fully tax groceries and one of the worst places in the nation for hunger. One in five of our children is at risk of going to bed hungry, according to the Oklahoma Task Force on Hunger.

As a former state representative in South Oklahoma City, I know how poverty, especially in single-parent households, fosters hunger, desperation, truancy, school dropouts, gangs, graffiti, crack cocaine, killings, and more.

A USA Today story on June 12, 2006, headlined "Gang activity cited for jump in U.S. homicides," reported, "The Oklahoma City police cited fighting among rival gangs as a major factor in the jump in homicides there, from 39 in 2004 to 54 last year."

In 2007, the Oklahoma Legislature declared in House Bill 1895, "The state of Oklahoma finds that youth and gang violence continues to grow in Oklahoma, decimating the lives of many youths and families in both urban and rural communities," and that "the funding, resources and programs responding to youth and gang violence are decreasing."

I also know about elderly widows who were full-time homemakers, as society encouraged years ago. They are struggling to survive on their late husbands' meager Social Security, which is based on wages much lower than they are today.

Now, single parents and elderly widows will be forced to pay so the wealthiest can play.

What happened to morality?

Johnston points out that the preamble to the U.S. Constitution declares that government's job is to "promote the general welfare."

He also cites in his book the Pledge of Allegiance's precepts of "liberty and justice for all." He sums up one principle this way:

"A society that takes from the many to give to the few undermines its moral basis and must in the end collapse."