Letter: Doerflinger ‘fancies himself an Oklahoma version of Trump’

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To the editors:

Recently, Oklahoma Secretary of Finance Preston Doerflinger once again decided to editorialize the monthly general revenue report.

During the legislative session, Doerflinger lobbied aggressively to eliminate the zero-emissions wind-tax credit, but the efforts were voted down three times because our elected officials determined they were worthwhile.

Considering Doerflinger is nothing more than an un-elected bureaucrat, you would expect him to respect their decision and to quietly go back to doing his job. Instead, he threw a fit. In regard to our wind-tax credit, he exclaimed, “How messed up is that?”

Some people say to me, “Well, he’s the state’s finance guy, it’s his job to warn us about fiscal dangers.” To them I say Doerflinger’s an appointed cabinet official, all of his other cabinet colleagues rarely comment on anything and certainly don’t bully a state industry they don’t like. Doerflinger also has no degree in a finance-related field. If someone were to warn us about fiscal dangers, it would be Ken Miller, the distinguished, elected state treasurer, who has an MBA from Pepperdine and a Ph.D from OU.

This is just another incident in a long line of embarrassing incidents Secretary Doerflinger has been involved in. In August of 2015, he pleaded no contest to a DUI charge, and in March 2016 he accused Joy Hofmeister of lying about school vouchers. He has spun these embarrassing incidents as, “I don’t whitewash things.” He basically fancies himself an Oklahoma version of Donald Trump except he isn’t a billionaire and can’t play to a crowd like Trump can. It’s clear to me that he won’t be able to scare the wind industry out of the state, and the wind industry will outlive this bizarre chapter of state history.

Gov. Mary Fallin claims to be pro-business — it’s time for her to re-affirm her support for all industry, not just the ones that donated to her campaign.

Sincerely,

John Clinger
Edmond, Okla.