Governor Stitt delivers the State of the State address at the capitol

Oklahoma’s Gov. Kevin Stitt gave his State of the State address at the Oklahoma State Capitol building on Feb. 3, 2025 to outline his plans for the 2025 legislative session, which includes tax cuts, fighting for the first ever publicly funded religious charter school and continuing his work-force readiness program for schools and universities.

The State of the State address is a constitutionally mandated speech given annually by a state’s governor to “report to the state legislature on the condition of the state,” according to ballotpedia.org.

Similar to the State of the Union address given by the president of the United States, its purpose is to highlight any notable achievements that were made by state legislation in the past year, as well as any issues that the governor thinks are important to address by the state’s law and policy makers, and how he proposes that those issues should be handled.

In Stitt’s address, one of the topics he emphasized was the importance of maintaining and strengthening both Oklahoma’s and the country’s economic status by collaborating with the Federal Government to do things such as decrease inflation, reduce the Federal debt, cut the size of the Federal Government, “shrink employee count” of the Oklahoma legislation, decreasing income tax for Oklahomans, and creating more jobs in Oklahoma.

“Our constituents voted for fiscal conservatism, not growing government,” said Stitt. “If people hear me say one thing, it is that I want Oklahoma to be the very best state for business… by being the best state for business, we’re paving the way to be the best state for education, the best state for infrastructure and the best state for families.”

Another point of interest that Stitt talked about was the education system in Oklahoma saying, “because we’re top ten for business, it’s time to make sure we’re top ten in education.”

Stitt spoke about how the Oklahoma legislature will focus on things such as eliminating virtual class sessions, encouraging schools to implement “phone-free school policies” to reduce distractions in classrooms, maintaining Oklahoma’s “education freedom,” and supporting “religious freedom” in schools.

“We paved the way for the first-ever religious charter school in the nation. I am so excited that the U.S.

Supreme Court will hear this groundbreaking religious freedom case. After all, the government shouldn’t stay in the way of the parents’ right to educate their children in line with their values,” said Stitt.

The governor also discussed creating more jobs and internship opportunities for students saying, “I want to sign a bill that creates more internship and apprenticeship programs. If we can get this right, we’ll lead the nation in workforce quality.”

“I call on businesses, schools and universities to create 250 new apprenticeship and internship programs this year. Let’s get it done,” Stitt continued. 

Republican member of the Oklahoma State Senate, Senator David Bullard, who was in attendance at the capitol, was asked to expand on some points that were made by Gov. Stitt and to discuss some topics that were not mentioned in the address, specifically about the possibility of increasing the minimum wage in Oklahoma.

“Absolutely not. I will not support it,” said Bullard. “Increasing the minimum wage is a tax on the middle class.”

“If I have to pay an employee more money according to what the government told me I have to do, versus whether or not they’re worth that amount of money, what am I going to do with the cost of my goods to make up for that?” Bullard said. “If I have to pay [an employee] more as a business owner, I’m just going to raise the cost of my goods. Not because it’s worth more, but because I have to; because the government forced my hand. It’s a bad idea.”