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THE CHASM BETWEEN OKLAHOMA AND CONNECTICUT  
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Kalena Thomhave
October 7, 2024
The American Prospect
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_ Stark differences color red- and blue-state lawmakers’ policy
choices—which makes all the difference in residents’ well-being. _


, Illustration by Alex Nabaum

 

In a conference room with harsh fluorescent lights, several bins sit
on a large table, each one overflowing with returned mail. On the
floor, there are even more bins for the staff at Hunger Free Oklahoma
in Tulsa to sort through. The organization’s executive assistant
sits me down on a sofa outside the conference room and cheerily asks
me about myself—Oklahomans like to “visit,” as they say. And
with a rueful smile, she apologizes for the “mess” of mail bins
that trickle out into the hall.

These hundreds of letters spotlight the massive attempt by the
statewide community group to connect kids who aren’t receiving the
free meals that they expect during the school year with the additional
funds for food during the summer. Also known as SUN Bucks, the federal
Summer EBT program provides benefits to families of children eligible
for free or reduced-price school lunches during the summer months.
Children receive $120 on electronic benefit transfer (EBT) cards—$40
for each summer month.

In Oklahoma, nearly a quarter of children live in food-insecure
households, one of the highest
[[link removed]] rates in the
country. The Annie E. Casey Foundation’s KIDS COUNT, its annual
compilation of child well-being data, ranked
[[link removed]] Oklahoma
46th in the nation overall—as well as 49th in education and 45th in
health.

Yet Oklahoma’s Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt rejected
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the roughly $48 million of funding for the 2024 Summer EBT program and
announced
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in August the state would also not participate in the program next
summer. Oklahoma was one of 13
[[link removed]] Republican-led states that
declined this year’s summer grocery benefit. “Oklahomans don’t
look to the government for answers, we look to our communities,” a
spokesperson for the governor said
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in a statement regarding the decision to decline the funding, which
they referred to as a “handout.”

Halfway across the country, KIDS COUNT ranked Connecticut 8th overall,
3rd in education, and 11th in health. But the state, which also
participated [[link removed]] in Summer EBT
this year, faces a hunger problem as well—more than 15 percent
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children live in food-insecure households. In fact, Connecticut was
one of the first states in the country
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in 2011.

The two states weren’t always such polar opposites. For instance, in
1959, Oklahoma and Connecticut residents had roughly the same life
expectancy
[[link removed]].
But fast-forward 60 years, and the numbers have significantly
diverged. Connecticut now ranks among the top ten states in average
lifespan, with an average life expectancy
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at birth of 80.8 years in 2019. That same year in Oklahoma, the
average lifespan at birth was more than four years lower at 76.1
years, among the bottom ten states in life expectancy. The national
average life expectancy in 2019 was roughly 79 years.

As state policy choices widen, so have the differences in state
residents’ health outcomes.

Gun control policy is another key indicator of life expectancy. But
Connecticut has passed
[[link removed]] background
checks, permit policies, and secure storage requirements, while
Oklahoma has few
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laws on the books. In fact, in 2019, the state passed
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a law allowing open carry without a permit or license in most public
places. In 2022, Oklahoma had the 13th-worst
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rate of gun violence in the U.S., while Connecticut had the 45th-worst
rate.

Jennifer Montez, professor of sociology at Syracuse University, has
considered
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how the polarization of politics and policy contributes to health
differences among state populations. Life expectancy in particular may
have precipitously declined
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nationwide in 2015, but it had been stagnating much longer before
that. And in the U.S., there are profound differences in residents’
lifespans across place—gaps that have been growing for decades.

In fact, Montez and her research team found that Connecticut passed
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most progressive policies between 1970 and 2014, while Oklahoma passed
the most conservative ones. Connecticut has passed a refundable Earned
Income Tax Credit
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while Oklahoma cut income taxes and refused to expand Medicaid until
voters passed
[[link removed](June_2020)]
a ballot initiative and forced the state to do so. Meanwhile, life
expectancy in both states did get better, but in Connecticut it
increased by 9.7 years and in Oklahoma it grew by just 5.0 years, as
of 2019.

“You have two states that [we]re the same, were pretty
middle-of-the-road in terms of life expectancy, but they take opposite
trajectories,” says Montez. Some states, she says, took action to
“invest in [the state] population’s overall economic well-being
and health.” Connecticut is one of them. “And you had other states
that took a much more”—she pauses, as if searching for a
diplomatic way to describe it—“they took a very different
approach.”

As the political parties nationalized, there were only two approaches
that most state governments would take. Policies “polarized between
and bundled within
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states, as Montez has described them, were tied to the governing
party’s ideology, creating more homogenous state policy landscapes
based on whether a state was led by Democrats or Republicans.

As differences in state policy choices have widened, so have the
differences in outcomes among state residents. State government, after
all, plunges into the day-to-day minutiae of our lives through
decisions about health, education, social services, criminal justice,
and more. For example, families in some states get money to keep their
kids fed during the summer; in other states, they don’t. Oklahoma
leaves it up to communities—and sometimes separate governments—to
fill the gaps.

ON THE CHEROKEE RESERVATION in northeastern Oklahoma, the Woody Hair
Community Center appears suddenly amidst lush trees on a single-lane
highway, the building’s sleek new construction juxtaposed against
the deep-green foothills of the Ozarks. The $21 million center in tiny
Kenwood (population 904
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is home to early-childhood facilities, a nutrition center where
seniors enjoy lunches, a large softball field, two playgrounds, a
rooftop garden, a large gym, and even concession stands.

In the Head Start area, children lie on napping mats; we tiptoe around
their sleeping forms to view one of the playgrounds and its shiny, new
plastic equipment.

Even the smallest rural community won’t be left behind by the
government—the Cherokee Nation government, that is. “These are our
people,” says Kim Chuculate, senior director of Cherokee Nation
Public Health, her arms extending to gesture around her in the lobby
of the center. The community center is meant to “be what it needs to
be for the community,” she says, which can be many things at once.
For example, while the facility can serve as a basketball court for
high school games with concession stands where school clubs can
fundraise by selling food, the community center is also outfitted to
serve as a tornado shelter. And each night of the week, different
sports are offered in the gym—sometimes it’s the popular new game
pickleball and sometimes it’s stickball, a traditional Cherokee
game.

The bumpy route back to Tahlequah, capital of the Cherokee Nation,
includes other hints of the investment taking place across Cherokee
Nation lands. Construction is under way at Tahlequah’s own medical
center, a massive campus where a visitor can see Cherokee
art—paintings, ceramics, and more—through the windows of most of
the buildings. (Building construction rules mandate that 1 percent
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of every project’s budget goes toward purchasing Cherokee art for
display.)

Expand
[OCT24 SPECIAL Thomhave graphic.jpg]
SOURCE: U.S. MORTALITY DATABASE, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY

 
More than 1 in 8 people
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Native American; there are 38
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recognized tribes in the state. The U.S. government force-marched the
Cherokee and other Southeastern tribes from their homelands to
Oklahoma during the ignominious 19th-century period known as the Trail
of Tears. This episode set in motion the Native communities’
disproportionate rates of poverty and chronic health issues like
diabetes and high blood pressure that many tribal members suffer from
today.

Health care, as a result, is a major focus of the Cherokee Nation,
which has spent millions
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constructing hospitals, clinics, and community centers in remote rural
areas.

Many of the Oklahoma state government’s own public-health
investments pale in comparison to tribal-run hospitals and clinics
that are coordinated by tribal governments in the eastern part of
Oklahoma. It’s the tribal communities that have stepped up to the
challenge of feeding Oklahoma children in the summer—whether or not
they are Native.

With assistance from Hunger Free Oklahoma, the Cherokee and Chickasaw
Nations coordinate [[link removed]]
the federal SUN Bucks program that serves children living within
Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muscogee (Creek), and Seminole Nations.
Any child on these tribal lands can receive benefits, and as tribal
lands are vast and include the state’s second-largest city of Tulsa,
roughly 105,000
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children were eligible for benefits this summer.

But even though tribal governments are indeed helping to fill the gaps
in areas like health care, it’s not their responsibility—nor can
it be: Unlike the eastern part of the state, most of western Oklahoma
is not tribal land. And usually, only members of federally recognized
tribes can use tribal-run facilities. When COVID-19 vaccines were
scarce, however, the Cherokee
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Chickasaw, Choctaw, Citizen Potawatomi, and Osage Nations provided
vaccines
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to any member of the public.

Meanwhile, dozens of rural hospitals in the state have closed
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in the past 15 years, and according to a 2024 report, 22 rural
hospitals
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in Oklahoma are at risk of shuttering—roughly a third of those
currently operating.

“Sometimes it feels like we’re filling a gap that shouldn’t be
there,” says Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr., the principal chief of the
Cherokee Nation. The investments across the reservation are “visual
evidence that our priorities are [in] health care,” he says, making
sure someone “is as healthy as they can be before they even step in
a hospital.”

Shiloh Kantz, a Cherokee citizen and executive director of the
Oklahoma Policy Institute (OK Policy), says that her tribe is “not a
business or corporate-centered government, [but instead] we are a
people-centered nation.” That’s “how we’re doing policy,”
she says.

When Oklahoma does adopt more progressive policies like Medicaid
expansion, it’s often because people have demanded change.

Other tribes have also invested heavily in health care. Darita
Huckabee, who was previously a lobbyist for the Indian Nations Council
of Governments in Tulsa, is a Choctaw citizen and has fond memories of
the treatment her father received in tribal facilities. She describes
how he’d get an asthma diagnosis in Denver, but the Chickasaw-run
hospital in the small town of Ada, open to any tribal citizen, would
administer treatment. It was “the best health care I’ve ever
seen,” she says, adding that the tribe’s investments in
preventative health care are “going to change our world.”

In 2019, the economic impact of tribal investments in business,
health, education, and jobs in Oklahoma was a remarkable $15.6 billion
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University report [[link removed]].

In contrast to the tribes’ significant investments, many miles and
one sovereign government away, Oklahoma City embraced the conservative
preference for shifting policy responsibilities from the federal
government to the states. Beginning in the 1980s, Washington gradually
embarked on devolution
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transfer of governing power to the states as Congress converted
program funding to fixed block grants. State lawmakers had greater
flexibility: They could either cut services or increase them.

Many states have also controlled city policies by preempting
localities
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often but not always Democratic cities in Republican states, from
passing their own policies, keeping city residents from receiving
benefits like paid sick leave, higher minimum wages, or tenant
protections. Moreover, today many states prioritize electing part-time
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“citizen” lawmakers who have other jobs (and other priorities).
Since the lawmakers don’t always have legislative staff to assist
with research on these topics—Oklahoma actually has fewer staff
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than it did in 1979—they rely on industry lobbyists and groups that
promote model bills, like the conservative American Legislative
Exchange Council (ALEC), that have stepped in to fill those gaps.
ALEC, in particular, has had notable successes
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in Oklahoma, especially with proposals to cut or ban health care
services and other programs.

“We [are] governments moving in two different directions,” says
Hoskin, referring to Oklahoma and the Cherokee Nation. “The state of
Oklahoma has retreated from the public sphere,” he says, while
“[we have] spent the last two decades with our foot on the gas,
pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into the public good.”

THE STATE OF CONNECTICUT, however, has accelerated its pace of
life-changing investments. In recent years, state lawmakers have
raised
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the minimum wage and passed paid family leave
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state EITC
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Last year, the state started the country’s first Baby Bonds
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child covered by Medicaid also receives a $3,200 trust fund at birth,
which the state treasurer monitors and invests. When a child reaches
adulthood, they can use the funds to buy a house, further their
education, save for retirement, or start a business.

“In Connecticut, there’s a sense of civic pride about passing
progressive legislation—and trying to be the first state to pass
certain legislation,” says Mark Abraham, executive director of
DataHaven, a New Haven–based local and state statistics hub.

Indeed, Connecticut was the first state
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to expand Medicaid after the passage of the Affordable Care Act. It
was also the first to pass paid sick leave
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requirements for private employers. These “bundles” of progressive
policies reflect policy choices that are “internally consistent,”
says Montez of Syracuse University. “You don’t see Connecticut
implementing a generous EITC but not raising the minimum wage.”

Some of this work in Connecticut was inspired directly by the White
House. For example, when Connecticut raised the state minimum wage to
$10.10 in 2014, that number matched the Obama administration’s
recommendation
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for a minimum-wage hike (and the raise
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the president gave to federal contract workers).

Policy bundles are also, of course, seen in Oklahoma and other
conservative-led states, where legislation championed by groups like
ALEC tends to follow other pieces of recommended proposals.

CARLY PUTNAM, AN ANALYST AT OK POLICY, is more than ready to talk to
me about Oklahoma’s policy shortcomings, telling me that her notes
for our conversation are nine pages long.

“We have not prioritized investing in state services,” she says
bluntly, referring to her state government. “We have repeatedly
chosen to disinvest from systems that are proven to help Oklahoma
children, families, and communities, and we’re reaping the products
of that harvest now.”

The shift is even starker between 2000 and 2024; according to OK
Policy, the state’s budget for the 2024 fiscal year is 12 percent
smaller [[link removed]] than the
budget for the 2000 fiscal year, adjusted for population and
inflation. As in many Republican states, Oklahoma legislators are
quite interested in cutting taxes. During this year’s state
legislative session, Republican House Speaker Charles McCall told
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reporters
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that “the people of the state of Oklahoma need to get a pay raise
through a tax cut,” and that “we need to first address that before
we address some other spending matters of the state.”

Darita Huckabee, a retired lobbyist, remembers the “tax-cutting
frenzy” the legislature went on beginning in the mid-2000s, with
repeated cuts to the state income tax. And because Oklahoma requires a
three-fourths majority
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in the legislature for any bill that raises revenue, once a tax is
cut, it will be very difficult to reverse those cuts. The goal, she
says, was to attract businesses that usually preferred Texas, a
supposed competitor. Texas, of course, does not have a state income
tax. Moreover, Oklahoma can’t begin to match what Texas, the
eighth-largest economy
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in the world, has to offer.

Still, Oklahoma is tied for the second-lowest
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corporate income tax rate in the country. Yet for all politicians’
talk of attracting businesses, Oklahoma has instead served as a pawn
for tax incentive schemes. When it tried to encourage Panasonic and
Tesla to open facilities in the state, Oklahoma offered hundreds of
millions
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in tax subsidies
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which likely boosted the offers from Kansas
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where Panasonic landed, and Texas, where Tesla ended up. Tulsa,
looking to woo Tesla to Oklahoma, even altered
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a local statue to look like Tesla CEO Elon Musk. “When talking to
key members of the team that would need to move … Austin was their
top pick to be totally frank,” Musk said
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if he hadn’t known that previously.

Oklahoma has “chosen to prioritize business rather than people, but
actually investing in people is what attracts business,” says Kantz
of OK Policy.

Though Oklahoma may be trying to diversify its economy with bids for
tech and manufacturing workers, the state still largely relies on
resource extraction, with oil and gas extraction making up
approximately 12 percent [[link removed]]
of the state’s GDP in 2022. With fossil fuel extraction following a
boom-and-bust cycle
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revenue—and accompanying state investment—often does too.

INSTEAD OF STATE INVESTMENT, when transformation does occur in
Oklahoma it’s often thanks to generous funding from local
organizations. About a decade ago, Oklahoma was regarded
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early-childhood education, largely championed by nonprofits and
philanthropies. Still, in 1998, it was Oklahoma, and not a blue state,
that was the first state
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to implement publicly funded, universal preschool for all
four-year-olds.

“We have seen progress here and there,” said David Blatt, director
of research and strategic impact at Oklahoma Appleseed, a
public-interest law firm. “But the overall feeling is like you’re
bailing a leaking boat with a teaspoon.”

Oklahoma’s K-12 education system is not exactly among the
country’s innovators. The state has some of the worst rates
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for per-pupil spending and teacher pay. Its state superintendent of
public instruction, Ryan Walters, has focused much of his time on
touting his mandate
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that public schools teach the Bible (even though they seem unlikely
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to do so). Education funding relies in part on the state’s volatile
gross production tax
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levied on the oil and gas industry. This severance tax is the
state’s third-biggest source of revenue after the personal income
tax and sales tax.

When Oklahoma does adopt more progressive policies—like Medicaid
expansion
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often because people have demanded change. In 2020, Oklahoma voters
approved a ballot measure to expand Medicaid to low-income adults
without children, making an additional 215,000
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eligible for the health insurance program.

Residents are also set to vote on a minimum-wage ballot measure in
November. The current minimum wage in Oklahoma matches the federal
minimum of $7.25, so any increase could be big for low-wage
workers—and judging by the success of previous ballot measures
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minimum-wage ballot measures are unlikely to lose.

But the spectacle of voters flexing their direct-democracy muscles
unnerves Republicans. State lawmakers have moved to restrict
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ballot measures. This year, the governor signed
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require ballot initiative sponsors to pay filing fees; one measure
also requires that a petition signer include several pieces of
information that exactly match their voter data on file, likely making
it harder for organizing groups to get issues on the ballot.

CONNECTICUT IS NOT IMMUNE from poverty, inequality, and health
disparities. The state has one of the most
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regressive tax systems in the country. According to a 2023 United Way
report on cost-of-living indicators, 39 percent
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of Connecticut residents struggle to afford their basic needs. While
Connecticut has the second-highest
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per capita income in the country, unsurprisingly, it also has some of
the highest rates of income inequality
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and racial segregation.

But health care is one of Connecticut’s bright spots: Just 5.1
percent
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of the state population is uninsured, making Connecticut one of the
best states for health care access in the country, which is reflected
in its health outcomes
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Still, there are widespread racial disparities
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in health care: While Connecticut has the lowest infant mortality rate
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in the country (4.8 deaths per 1,000 births), its infant mortality
rate for Black mothers is more than twice as high—11.7 deaths per
1,000 births.

Oklahoma has opted to rely on “communities” to bridge widening
chasms in hunger, health, education, and a host of other social
sectors, producing outcomes that are worse across the board, with
limited access
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care as well as a shortage
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of health providers. Kantz, the state health care expert, has a
teenage daughter with a rare disease. Since the beginning of the year,
she says her daughter has gone through four pediatric neurologists as
doctors have left the state.

Her family was originally driving three hours round trip from Tulsa to
Oklahoma City to reach one, but now they must drive eight hours round
trip to Dallas. Another specialist is a plane ride away in Pittsburgh.
Once her daughter graduates from high school, Kantz says, it might be
time for her family to leave the state.

The policy differences between states that provide robust services and
states that eliminated them, or never offered them in the first place,
have impacts that reverberate across people’s lives. Daily existence
becomes more difficult than it would be in a place that prioritizes
improving public services and easing residents’ hardships.

The divergence between Connecticut and Oklahoma is an extreme example
of what’s occurring across the country as Republican states cut
taxes and services and create environments where residents are
beholden to the policy whims of corporations, interest groups, and
wealthy donors, all who have a vested interest in low taxes and
limited social spending.

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Kalena Thomhave is a freelance journalist and researcher based in
Pittsburgh. She is a former Prospect writing fellow.

* Oklahoma; Connecticut; State Policy; Tribal Governments; Cherokee
Nation;
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