Oklahoma and Tulsa Blame Highway Potholes on Airline...

[FN FAL]

Great Plains Airline Money Impacting Oklahoma Roads

KOTV - 5/16/2006 10:23 AM - Updated: 5/16/2006 5:32 PM
A Tulsa based airline that went under wasn't just a money pit for taxpayers, it was a pothole too. It turns out the state tax money that went into Great Plains Airlines, is now coming out of the budget for fixing roads and bridges.
News on 6 reporter Emory Bryan explains how.

When Great Plains took off it was to the cheers of all the politicians who helped create it. They had the vision that Great Plains would finally link Tulsa and the coast with non-stop air service. The reality - now five years later - is that Great Plains greatest impact might be on Oklahoma's roads.

The $27-million the state lost on Great Plains is slowly coming out of the budget for repairing roads and bridges. Here's how it happened. The legislature created tax credits to help start Great Plains Airlines. The airline sold the tax credits to companies which used to reduce what they owed for state taxes - so what would have been tax money went to the airline instead of the state budget.

The Oklahoma Department of Transportation gets its money from that budget - but to make up for the loss to Great Plains - the state essentially cut ODOT's budget. If the airline had succeeded, it would have repaid ODOT with more tax credits for creating jobs. Since the airline failed - those tax credits didn't materialize - so ODOT doesn't get the money.

It's ultimately the taxpayers who lose - because tax money that would have improved roads was instead wasted on a high risk venture.

And it's not just the state - Tulsa is still on the hook for a $7-million loan to Great Plains - and even taxpayers in Illinois are grumbling. They paid for improvements to the airport where Great Plains could land near St Louis, and loaned the airline a million dollars - not long before the airline closed for good.

That's the how it happened - but why it happened is because of the politicians who set it all up - both on the state and local level. There is still a $7-million debt that the city guaranteed for get the airline going. And there is plenty of legal action pending and in the works against the bankrupt airline and the people who ran it.

 

[LegacyDriver]

A major boondoggle but....

Oklahoma's roads suck and have for decades--certainly for longer than Plains was around...

Oklahoma doesn't put 100 percent of fuel taxes into roads and bridges in the first place. A large percentage gets thrown into general revenue and spent on all sorts of stuff.

Also, tolls collected are not distributed proportionally. Tulsa toll roads generate 20 percent more money than gets sent back to Tulsa to maintain them.

It's a big mess.

Great Plains is a convenient diversion...

 

[Chest Rockwell]

Public (tax) money was loaned and guaranteed loans to Great Plains. I do not know of anyone in the airline business that thought that Great Plains ever had a chance to succeed(to no fault of its employees).

 

[con-pilot]

At this same time the Oklahoma Legislature is pondering what to do with a $800 million dollar surplus from increased tax revenue from oil production and the new lottery.

Go figure.


(In other words they are trying to figure out how to fill their pockets.)

 

[Groucho]

Potholes and Okies.

I lived in Tulsa, way back when. It was a time when most of the juniors on this board were not yet in school and Jimmy Carter was president.

Okies were a strange but pleaseant bunch. They had an inferority complex regarding Texas and would let you know at the drop of a hat that "There wouldn't be no Texans ceptting for Okie truck drivers and Mexican Who$%s."

As one from the Northeast, I had no dog in this fight and I didn't discuss football with these folks at all. That's as bad a talking religion, and I grew up within shouting distance of Notre Dame in SBN. All Okies wanted me to understand that God really is a baptist. I really would like to get some Okies and fighting Irish together with losts of alcohol together to discuss that question.

Oklahoma and Kansas have some funny liquor laws. BYOB bars, membership clubs etc. etc. No liquor by the drink. What a way to run a State. Oral Roberts is still waiting for God to call him home.

As for me I am confused about religion. I am a Dyslexic, Agnostic, Insomniac. I stay up at night wondering if there is a Dog.

 

[agpilot34]

At this same time the Oklahoma Legislature is pondering what to do with a $800 million dollar surplus from increased tax revenue from oil production and the new lottery.



Go figure.


(In other words they are trying to figure out how to fill their pockets.)

Who told you that BS? There is no "surplus from the lottery". the biggest part of that money is going towards education, because that's what it was guaranteed for. I've lived in this state all my life, and I can tell you that the bad roads are no recent thing. That's just the state and the city of Tulsa trying to pass the buck for their own incompetence at running things. The state would have some money if they didnt give it all to the teachers every time they whine a little bit about their salary. No, the roads dont have a THING to do with Great Plains going belly up, that's a joke. The problem is years and years of money mismanagement by virtually EVERY branch of the state's government.

 

[nimtz]

Any state that by law makes all beer 3% alcohol content goes on my waste of space list.

 

[agpilot34]

THE BEER'S 3.2% d@mnit!!! dont slight us poor people that extra .2%!!!

Good thing is it's just a short hop across the river into Texas to get some REAL beer.

 

[wrxpilot]

Who told you that BS? There is no "surplus from the lottery". the biggest part of that money is going towards education, because that's what it was guaranteed for. I've lived in this state all my life, and I can tell you that the bad roads are no recent thing. That's just the state and the city of Tulsa trying to pass the buck for their own incompetence at running things. The state would have some money if they didnt give it all to the teachers every time they whine a little bit about their salary. No, the roads dont have a THING to do with Great Plains going belly up, that's a joke. The problem is years and years of money mismanagement by virtually EVERY branch of the state's government.

So there's a bunch of RICH teachers running around Oklahoma huh?

 

[agpilot34]

No, their not rich by any means. OK's teacher pay is pretty low on the scale nationally, but it's the principal of the thing that gets me. My wife works for the State of OK, Dept. of Veteran's affairs, at one of the VA hospitals here. They get shafted all the time for funding, and so do alot of other state agencies that could realy use the bucks. But let the OK State Teacher's Assoc. decide they need another pay raise, and our Governor will fall over himself coming to their rescue. They come up with all these programs, like the state lottery, that is supposed to help fund education. What happens 99 percent of the time is the biggest part of it goes for teacher's salaries and other benefits, and a VERY small part actually gets put towards educational funding. Knowing some of the teachers here in our state, they are already paid more than they are worth as far as I'm concerned. But, that's another story all together.