Oklahoma’s Bold Bid to End Home Property Taxes

Why State Question 843 Is Essential to Reclaim Taxpayer Freedom and Fix a Broken Economic Development System

By Marven Goodman
Investigative Reporter

January 21, 2026 — Oklahoma’s homeowners face an unrelenting financial siege: property taxes that never truly allow them to own their homes. These ad valorem levies, which disproportionately fund a bloated and under-performing public school system, failed economic development programs, extract billions from hardworking families, seniors on fixed incomes, and small businesses, funds that could instead fuel local economies through personal spending, saving, or investment. State Question 843 (SQ 843), a citizen-driven initiative petition, promises to shatter this cycle by phasing out property taxes on owner-occupied homes via a full homestead exemption, empowering taxpayers and exposing the inefficiencies of a system that perpetually drains the economy.

Championed by fiscal conservatives like former state Rep. Mike Reynolds, state Sen. Shane Jett, and state Rep. Jay Steagall, SQ 843 proposes a statutory reform to eliminate these taxes over three years: a 33.33% exemption in 2027, 66.67% in 2028, and 100% by 2029. If voters approve it in November 2026, it could return an average of $1,200 annually to each of Oklahoma’s 1.5 million homestead owners, injecting over $1.8 billion back into the private sector. This isn’t just tax relief; it’s a revolutionary step toward true property ownership, rooted in a 1936 constitutional amendment allowing the legislature to set homestead exemptions. As Reynolds told Marven Goodman of The Sooner Sentinel, “No one ever owns their property, the government always owns it” under the current regime.

Representative Mike Reynolds (left) and Senator Jim Reynolds (right)

Proponents hail SQ 843 as a lifeline for families squeezed by rising costs, but its urgency is amplified by the glaring failures of Oklahoma’s failed economic development initiatives, one of the largest beneficiary of property taxes. By redirecting these funds back to individuals, SQ 843 would force our state to operate more efficiently while unleashing economic growth that far outpaces the stagnant “multiplier” effects touted by tax and spend bureaucrats.

The Man Behind the Measure
Mike Reynolds’ Path to Tax Reform

Mike Reynolds, a 74-year-old fiscal hawk from Oklahoma City, embodies the drive behind SQ 843. Born to a Marine family with deep Oklahoma ties, he built a tech career before entering politics in 2002. Serving District 91 until 2014, Reynolds was a maverick, missing just one session day and championing transparency. His 2014 bill extending exemptions to disabled veterans’ widows foreshadowed SQ 843’s focus on vulnerable homeowners.

Post-legislature, Reynolds has battled initiatives like marijuana legalization and exposed scandals, from tax credit frauds to campaign finance schemes. His discovery of the 1936 constitutional clause ignited SQ 843, aiming to end the “theft” of excess tax sale funds and empower citizens.

The Economic Case
Taxpayer Empowerment Over Perpetual Extraction

SQ 843’s genius lies in implying the elimination of our state sponsored economic development drag with taxpayer-driven growth. Property taxes remove funds perpetually, funneling them into inefficient bureaucracies where multipliers are overstated and benefits leak. Returning $1.8 billion to Oklahoma taxpayers will allow for a 5-6x turnover through private choices, spending on local goods (significantly boosting sales tax), increase saving for stability, or investing in businesses, generating far more vitality than locked-in payrolls.

Wasteful Corporate Welfare Under Governor Stitt
A Taxpayer-Funded Boondoggle (2019-2025)

Mr Reynolds proposes that this squandering extends to broader government waste, exemplified by Governor Kevin Stitt’s explosion of corporate handouts. Since 2019, Stitt has overseen billions in incentives, rebates, credits, and grants, to mega-corporations and foreign entities, betraying our limited-government principles. This crony capitalism picks winners and losers, distorting markets and burdening future generations.

Taxpayer-funded economic development programs, whether at the state or federal level, epitomize the worst excesses of big government cronyism, siphoning hard-earned dollars from everyday Americans to prop up favored corporations and fly-by-night ventures under the guise of job creation and growth.

Take Oklahoma’s Quick Action Closing Fund, a discretionary slush fund bloated under Governor Stitt that funneled millions into the utter disaster that was Canoo. This over-hyped electric vehicle startup promised thousands of jobs but delivered nothing but shuttered factories in Pryor and Oklahoma City, mass furloughs of 82 workers, halted production, and a humiliating bankruptcy filing by January 2025. The Quick Action Closing Fund (QACF), established in 2011 under House Bill 1953, was designed to attract businesses to Oklahoma with taxpayer-funded incentives, but its involvement with Canoo Inc. exemplifies the pitfalls of corporate welfare. In 2022, Governor Kevin Stitt pledged up to $15 million from the fund to lure the electric vehicle startup, which promised thousands of jobs in Oklahoma City and Pryor. By 2024, Canoo received $1 million after announcing over 100 positions, part of a larger $100 million in state incentives over a decade. However, Canoo’s bankruptcy filing on January 17, 2025, has exposed the risks: unfulfilled job promises, idled factories, and taxpayer losses, highlighting how government handouts distort free markets and reward failure at public expense.

Canoo’s collapse stems from chronic funding shortfalls, production delays, and failed attempts to secure federal loans or foreign investments, leading to furloughs of 82 employees in December 2024 and complete operational shutdown. The state’s contract required Canoo to maintain 80% of promised jobs for 18 months, triggering a clawback of the $1 million disbursed, the only portion paid out from the $15 million pledge. As of January, 2026, the Office of Economic Development is actively pursuing recovery, but the debacle underscores the moral hazard of subsidies: Taxpayers bear the burden when ventures flop, while executives walk away. This aligns with the Sooner Sentinel’s view that limited government avoids such interventions, favoring low taxes and free enterprise over picking winners and losers.

In response, legislative efforts like Senate Bill 294, filed in December 2024, aim to bar electric vehicle manufacturers from future QACF eligibility, preventing repeats in volatile sectors. The Canoo fiasco, combined with a separate state vehicle contract now in limbo, serves as a cautionary tale against government dictating market preferences. Oklahomans deserve policies that reduce taxes and bureaucratic overreach, not fund risky bets that evaporate public dollars, reinforcing the need for fiscal restraint to empower citizens, not corporations.

This isn’t free-market capitalism; it’s a stealth tax on Oklahomans, diverting funds that could slash property taxes via State Question 843 or empower families through vouchers and apprenticeships. Instead, it fosters dependency, inflates costs, and distorts markets while bureaucrats pick losers like Canoo over genuine opportunities, all while rural communities languish without genuine relief and taxpayers are left demanding clawbacks that the state drags its feet on enforcing.

Since taking office in January 2019, Stitt has presided over an explosion of government handouts disguised as “economic development” incentives, rebates, tax credits, and grants funneled to mega-corporations and foreign entities, all at the expense of Oklahoma taxpayers. This isn’t conservatism; it’s crony capitalism run amok, a betrayal of the limited government principles that true fiscal conservatives hold dear. We’re talking about state government picking winners and losers in the marketplace, distorting free enterprise, and saddling future generations with the bill for today’s political expediency.

As the Sooner Sentinel digs deeper into official state reports, legislative bills, Incentive Evaluation Commission (IEC) evaluations, Oklahoma Department of Commerce (ODOC) announcements, and credible news sources, the picture that emerges is one of unchecked spending and questionable returns. Stitt, who campaigned on pro-business rhetoric, has instead embraced big-government interventionism, doling out billions on subsidies that could have been left in the pockets of Oklahomans to fuel genuine, organic growth.

Our recalculated analysis, incorporating the latest details on high-profile deals like the Emirates Global Aluminium (UAE) smelter, which alone burdens taxpayers with around $760 million in incentives, including a $255 million direct package and additional rebates and utility subsidies, reveals a staggering total direct cost to Oklahoma taxpayers of ~$2.03 billion from 2019 to 2025 (excluding purely federal pass-throughs like the bulk of SSBCI). When factoring in indirect costs, administrative overhead, and matched federal waste, the overall burden swells to ~$2.1-2.5 billion. This is money ripped from the productive economy, where it could have supported families through lower taxes, bolstered small businesses without strings attached, or funded essential infrastructure without the taint of favoritism.

Worse still, this squandered fortune could have been redirected to offset the revenue impacts of SQ 843, a bold initiative to phase out burdensome homestead property taxes and deliver real relief to 1.5 million Oklahomans. As detailed in Ballotpedia’s overview, SQ 843 proposes a gradual elimination: a 33.33% exemption in tax year 2027, 66.67% in 2028, and full 100% exemption by 2029 and beyond. The average homeowner would save $1,200 annually, empowering families to invest in their futures rather than feeding the government’s insatiable appetite. Yet, the measure carries an initial revenue hit, starting at $400 million in 2027 and ramping to $1.2 billion thereafter, primarily affecting local schools, counties, and services. Imagine if that $2 billion-plus in corporate subsidies had been clawed back: It could cover SQ 843’s shortfalls for multiple years, fund school choice vouchers, vocational training credits, and apprenticeship programs, all while trimming the fat from bloated bureaucracies. Instead of propping up foreign smelters and EV giants, we could unleash economic freedom, reduce dependency on government, and let markets thrive, hallmarks of true fiscal conservatism.

But under Stitt, the opposite has prevailed. Our investigation reveals a tenure marked by high-profile flops, urban-centric giveaways, and a feud-ridden administration that prioritizes political theater over prudent stewardship. Even as Stitt touts tax cuts, like the quarter-percent income tax reduction signed in the 2025 legislative session, his economic incentives empire continues to balloon, drawing fire from within his own party. State Superintendent Ryan Walters, in a scathing May 2025 X post, accused Stitt of a “power grab” via SB 646, alleging retaliation against critics of his “green energy scam” by stripping authority from elected offices. Walters doubled down in March, claiming Stitt’s policies represent an “assault on Donald Trump’s reform agenda,” particularly on immigration mandates. And it’s not just insiders: Public sentiment on social media echoes the frustration. Even Attorney General Gentner Drummond clashed with Stitt over 2025 vetoes, highlighting tensions over state power and accountability.

At the core of this fiscal fiasco lies a web of longstanding and newly minted incentive programs that exemplify the cronyism plaguing Oklahoma’s economic policy. The Quality Jobs Program (Title 68 O.S. § 3601 et seq.), enacted in 1993 and bloated over the years under administrations like Stitt’s, offers cash rebates up to 5% of new payroll for up to 10 years to manufacturers and service firms meeting wage thresholds around $40,000-$50,000 annually. It’s pint-sized sibling, the Small Employer Quality Jobs Program (Title 68 O.S. § 3901 et seq.), targets businesses with 500 or fewer employees, dishing out similar rebates for 7 years. For the tech crowd, the 21st Century Quality Jobs Incentive (Title 68 O.S. § 3911 et seq.), born in 2009, ups the ante to 10% rebates. Then there’s the Investment/New Jobs Tax Credit (Title 68 O.S. § 2357.4), handing out $500-$1,000 per new job or up to 2% on investments, and the Manufacturer’s Sales and Use Tax Exemption (Title 68 O.S. § 1357), waiving sales taxes on equipment. Rounding out the giveaway gala is the Quick Action Closing Fund (Title 62 O.S. § 48, from HB 1953 in 2011), a discretionary grant pot up to $10 million for “high-impact” projects, often code for backroom deals.

From a conservative lens, these programs aren’t economic boosters; they’re hidden taxes on Oklahomans, siphoning revenue that could fund broad-based tax cuts or essential services without the need for borrowing or rate hikes. For every dollar rebated or exempted, that’s forgone revenue forcing the state to lean harder on everyday taxpayers. The Reindustrialize Oklahoma Act of 2025 (HB 2781), authored by Senator Chuck Hall and rammed through after a dramatic Senate vote flip, exemplifies this at it’s absolute worst. Framed by Stitt in May 2025 as a patriotic stand against foreign aluminum dependence, it lured Emirates Global Aluminium (EGA), a foriegn firm owned by Abu Dhabi and Dubai investment arms, with a $760 million taxpayer funded incentive package, including perpetual tax exemptions, a Tax Increment Financing (TIF) district that diverts local revenues intended to support schools and local services, and a $255 million cash infusion from the Quick Action Closing Fund. Promising to double U.S. primary aluminum production with a 600,000-ton smelter, the first new one since 1980, this deal clocks in at a grotesque $2.8 million per job, subsidizing a foreign giant while local small businesses scrape by. This isn’t free-market capitalism; it’s situational ethics, where “national security” masks public funds flowing to overseas entities, risking evaporation if UAE geopolitics shift.

Senator Chuck Hall’s fingerprints are all over this mess, revealing a pattern of top-down imposition that mocks conservative values. As Senate Appropriations Chairman, Hall’s 2026 election mailer from OklahomaBlueprint.com boasts “Promises Made, Promises Kept” with claims of “Lower Taxes, More Jobs, Safer Neighborhoods, Better Schools”, speculative at best, deceptive at worst. His record? A trail of reckless pursuits like the $312 million Lawton Correctional Facility purchase, the $698 million LEAD Act, and $250 million for “Project Ocean.” But the crown jewel of waste is the Progressing Rural Economic Prosperity (PREP) Fund, which Hall championed in a 2022 special session with $250 million, later bloated to $302.25 million with ARPA scraps. Pitched as a rural lifeline, industrial parks, aeronautics hangars, trade hubs, it mirrors Hall’s small-town mayor days in Perry, but on steroids. “The PREP projects will be transformational,” he declared in 2022, echoing a pattern of overpromising and underdelivering.

Three years on, PREP’s ledger is a disaster: $20 million for Stillwater’s industrial park yielded just 150 jobs by 2024, with nominal wage gains erased by inflation; $15 million for Enid’s Vance hangars stalled amid delays, its 200-job promise a mirage; $20 million for fairgrounds pens ignored the Oklahoma City Stockyards’ closure, where cattle numbers plummeted from 1 million to 340,000 annually, rendering it a folly for a dying market. The $5 million Oklahoma City trade office sits underutilized, its impact unmeasurable. The rest? A scattershot: $25 million for Ardmore rails, $22.5 million for Burns Flat space fantasies, and dozens more, with $50 million unspent by 2025 and perhaps 400 jobs statewide, a $755,625-per-job travesty. This isn’t progress; it’s plunder, a $302.25 million government fever dream that drains prosperity while fostering dependency.

John Prine’s song entitled “There’s a Hole in Daddy’s Arm Where All the Money Goes” captures this destructive cycle perfectly, a metaphor for how these incentives consume resources without returns, leaving families in despair. In Perry, grain elevators stand as silent witnesses to Hall’s failed dreams; rural kids still flee, towns shrink. Who believes $755,625 per job is value? It’s cronyism in disguise, diverting from tax relief and infrastructure. The Sooner Sentinel calls for reforms: Abolish these incentives, impose sunset clauses on funds like Quick Action Closing, and end the digitization wave (like SB 836’s e-titles) that consolidates power and shreds privacy. Hall’s banker instincts grasp profit, but his lawmaker fist throttles it, time to hold him and Stitt accountable to lower taxes, enable smaller government, and put an end to hidden taxes draining our wallets.

The Road to the Ballot
Challenges and Momentum

Needing 92,263 signatures, SQ 843 builds on SQ 841 & 842’s refiling. Endorsed by conservatives like Jason Murphy, it faces opposition from special interest lobbyist fearing real legislative tax reform. Yet, with a $3.7 billion surplus, Oklahoma can adapt, perhaps by eliminating taxpayer giveaways and greater efficiency reforms.

If passed, SQ 843 could inspire nationwide change, ensuring government serves citizens, not vice versa. For Oklahoma, it’s a chance to reclaim freedom, fix education’s failures, and unleash economic potential. As Reynolds puts it, “Government needs to exist for our protection and benefit. We don’t need to exist for their benefit.”

In Summary

SQ 843 represents a pivotal opportunity for Oklahomans to break free from the grip of excessive taxation and government waste, restoring true property ownership, empowering families to drive economic growth, and demanding accountability from failed state sponsored economic development boondoggles, vote yes on SQ 843 to reclaim your freedom and build a leaner, more prosperous state.