Insight
Stitt claims building housing exacerbates homelessness by attracting more people
“You can never build enough houses for homeless because you're just going to keep attracting more and more and more people.”
Disclosure
Stitt deployed Oklahoma Highway Patrol to give Tulsa campers an ultimatum
“I sent my highway patrol in to clean up Tulsa. And we first went in and told them, you're not allowed to camp here. Ah, we gave them one day to get away, and then the next day we showed up, and we basically said, we're going to give you a couple options. We wi…”
Assertion Supported
Stitt says 99% of people in Tulsa encampments chose to leave
“99% of the people, they just leave because this is a lifestyle and they haven't hit rock bottom yet. And they're literally just getting on the train tracks and walking on to the next community.”
Opinion
Stitt claims homeless nonprofits raise more money when crises worsen
“Nonprofits, the way they make money, Is not by solving these problems. They can make, they can raise more money if they keep, if it gets worse and they keep talking about it. And so when you create all these services, you're going to be attracting more and mor…”
Disclosure
Stitt says Oklahoma plans to institute long-term civil psychiatric commitments
“That's one thing Oklahoma's looking at is, if you have some serious mental issues, we are going to get you into, we're going to prosecute you, that's part of Trump's executive order, we're going to commit you long term.”
Assertion Partly supported
Stitt: Executive order banned DEI teaching in Oklahoma universities
“Obviously, I signed an executive order that banned DEI teaching in our universities.”
Assertion Contradicted
Stitt claims there is no evidence needle exchanges curb drug use
“We don't see any evidence that that's gonna curb drug use by, you know, giving them more, more needles.”
Assertion Supported
Stitt: Oklahoma provides families up to $7,500 tax credits for school choice
“Now every single family has up to 7500 dollars of a refundable tax credit. To go to a school of their choice”
Disclosure
Stitt: Oklahoma pursues constitutional cap limiting spending growth to inflation
“One of the things we're gonna do is a contract with Oklahoma, and we're gonna roll this out, it's probably, I'm probably spoiling it here for, if it's on TV, if we're recording this, but, ah, it's a contract with Oklahoma that we're gonna get in our Constituti…”
Opinion
Stitt: New York is trapped in an economic death spiral
“They're in a death spiral. We know this in business. They can never catch up. And the wealthy is leaving. The taxpayers are leaving. All they can do is raise taxes. They can't cut it.”
Assertion Contradicted
Stitt claims 45% of Tulsa's homeless population originated out of state
“The other thing, Joe, that I think is interesting, from our surveys, around 45% of the homeless in Tulsa were from out of state.”
Assertion Partly supported
Stitt claims restoring felony theft penalties decreased crime in Oklahoma
“So we've gone back, and we've raised the threshold, we've turned it back into a felony, and guess what? Crime's going down in Oklahoma.”
Assertion Supported
Stitt: One of the few US governors to refuse statewide mask mandates
“And then during COVID I was one of the only governors in the country, by the way, that refused to do a mask mandate statewide.”
Assertion Supported
Stitt: Oklahoma banned public encampments and routed detainees to treatment
“So we banned obviously campments on any kind of public, public public places and then we had to change the law where our police, because a lot of this is mental health, it's addiction, and so our police at first could not, weren't allowed to take anybody excep…”
Insight
Stitt: Lobbying money in state capitols is always on the 'yes' side
“Only the money is on the yes side that's going to benefit someone. They're the ones that have the money to hire the lobbyists to go whip up the legislature to get stuff passed.”
Assertion Partly supported
Stitt: Oklahoma business permits are free if not processed within 30 days
“I signed an EO that said that if you don't have a permit done to business within 30 days, it's free.”
Assertion Supported
Stitt: Oklahoma removed 1.9 million pounds of debris from Tulsa encampments
“We removed about 1.9 million pounds of trash and debris, needles, drug paraphernalia.”
Assertion Supported
Stitt: State operation cleared 64 homeless encampments in Tulsa
“There were 64 different camps, and you'd be shocked, like literally right off the highway in some wooded areas, some encampments behind people's houses.”
Assertion Supported
Stitt: Oklahoma Passed Law Requiring Litigation Funder Disclosures
“And so we, you have to now disclose who are your funders. And we're just trying to expose that. So we actually passed a law last year against some of those major, major you know, lawsuits that are coming, and who are the funders behind them?”
Assertion Contradicted
Stitt: Oklahoma increased education funding more in 5 years than prior 25
“We've got we've done tax cuts, done more money into education than any other governor in my first five years, and they did for 25 years before I got there.”
Assertion Partly supported
Stitt: Tulsa Public Schools remained closed for 355 days
“Tulsa Public Schools was closed for 355 days.”
Assertion Supported
Stitt: Oklahoma requires agencies to cut two rules for every new rule
“One of them was, if we're gonna do, if we're gonna promulgate rules, so a rule is from a state agency, right? So if you're gonna add another rule, we want you to go through and scrub the list and get rid of two rules, right? So pretty, pretty easy to do, becau…”
Assertion Partly supported
Stitt: OU Nursing School accepted all 600 applicants after state pressure
“And at the OU Health Science Center, and the President Joe Harris and I got up there, and we proudly announced there were 600 nursing applicants to OU Nursing School, and we accepted all 600.”
Assertion Partly supported
Stitt: New York spends $233B compared to Florida's $115B budget
“New York is two hundred and thirty three billion is their state budget. What do you think Florida is? A hundred and fifteen billion. Ok? And Florida has a zero percent income tax. New York has 10.9 plus the city tax in New York City.”
Kevin Stitt