Oklahoma lawmaker urges House speaker to ’step up’ and support his property tax cap bill

Okla. lawmaker pushes property tax cap measure

OKLAHOMA CITY — A simmering feud boiled over Tuesday when the GOP author of a property tax cap bill urged Oklahoma Republican House Speaker Chris Benge to “step up” and support his measure “or step down and let someone else lead the House.”

Rep. David Dank, R-Oklahoma City, said Benge’s characterization of his measure as a tax cut is inaccurate and that the House’s GOP leader seems “out of touch with the core Republican principle of limited government we were sent here to espouse.”

Dank’s proposals call for a vote on a lifetime freeze in property taxes for seniors over 65, as long as they own their home, and a 3 percent annual cap on tax increases for everyone else. Currently, annual property tax increases are limited to 5 percent.

“Either he just doesn’t get it or he is carrying water for those special interests who think ‘the higher the taxes, the better,’” Dank said. “I know I am not the only one in the House who is terribly disappointed with Speaker Benge.”

Dank’s comments provoked a sharp rebuke from Benge, who is serving his third and final year in the House’s top job.

“Representative Dank’s efforts to question my commitment to limited government and low taxes for Oklahoma families is nothing more than political grandstanding at its worst,” Benge, of Tulsa, said in a statement.

Benge, former chairman of the House Appropriations and Budget Committee who has supported tax cut proposals in the past, said Oklahoma’s severe budget crunch and a revenue estimate for next year’s state budget that is $1.3 billion less than the current one requires lawmakers to take “a fiscally responsible approach to both government spending and tax relief.”

“There is no doubt that Rep. Dank’s measures will directly affect local school budgets, at a time when schools are already struggling,” Benge said.

The state faces a $729 million budget shortfall for the fiscal year that ends June 30. State agencies have announced layoffs and furloughs of workers and the reduction or elimination of services to taxpayers to cope with budget cuts ordered by state officials in recent months.

Benge said the American Legislative Exchange Council already ranks Oklahoma as having the 2nd lowest property taxes in the country.

“Representative Dank and I have a fundamental disagreement on how to handle tax relief in the coming years,” the House speaker said. “I am personally offended by his questioning of my motives in the position I have taken.”

It is not the first time Dank has tangled with Benge over the property tax cap issue. Last fall, Dank wrote a letter to members of the House Republican caucus criticizing Benge for opposing the plan.

Dank said his property tax proposals are not tax cuts but tax restraints. He said they would result in no revenue reductions to schools or counties and would have no impact on the state budget.

“How is a 3-percent annual increase a reduction?” Dank said. “The simple truth is that we have a built-in annual tax increase for literally thousands of Oklahoma homeowners during a severe recession.

“At the current 5-percent rate of increase, when you compound it, that amounts to doubling everyone’s property taxes every 13 years. That’s just wrong and I am baffled that a Republican Speaker is opposed to alleviating it.”