Candidates For Oklahoma Governor Speak At Tulsa Forum

Candidates for Oklahoma governor took to the podium at a forum in north Tulsa on Tuesday.

The event was held at Praise Center Family Church, and the hot topic was fixing the financial crisis.  As Democratic candidate Connie Johnson put it, "we're not a poor state, we're a broke state."

The other gubernatorial candidates taking part were Republican Gary Richardson and Libertarians Chris Powell and Rex Lawhorn.

The four candidates spoke up about who's to blame and how to move forward.

"The answer to the problem is not raising taxes," said Richardson.  "As Governor of Oklahoma, I will audit every state agency, every authority, every trust.  We will find the problems, we will plug the holes."

"Our tendency to privatize services, from private prisons to private veterans centers, to private child welfare centers," said Johnson.  "Ultimately, we want to talk later about new sources of revenue, including cannabis, wind, and solar."

Powell said that "you can name a laundry list of things that we can consolidate, that we can reduce, that we can address, like GPT, which all of our energy should be one rate, from day forward, with no special favors."

"The problem is that we have for so long been treating the oil and gas industry like our favorite child," said Lawhorn.  "By fixing the GPT, we'll increase our revenue, we'll help balance our economy by treating the rest of energy equally."

Two other candidates were invited to attend the forum, but did not attend.  They are Republican Gary Johnson, who is currently Oklahoma's State Auditor, and Democrat Drew Edmondson, who had a stand-in at the forum.

The election is November 6th, so there will be more forums and other opportunities to get to know the candidates as the gubernatorial race continues.