Gov. Kevin Stitt delivered his final State of the State address on Monday as he enters his last year in office. The Frontier used historical archives, interviews, government data and other records to fact-check some of his remarks. Stitt’s office supplied source documentation for some of the information in the governor’s speech but did not provide a comment on statements we rated as false. 

Stitt said: “Like Ronald Reagan said, you eventually run out of other people’s money.”
Fact check: Mostly false

Although Reagan was famously fiscally conservative, The Frontier could find no documentation that he ever said this.

Reagan did say during a 1985 address to the nation on the federal budget that: “Every dollar the government spends comes out of your pockets.”

The famous quotation: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money,” is widely attributed to former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. The quote is likely paraphrased from a 1975 speech Thatcher gave at a Conservative Party Conference, when she said: “It’s the Labour Government that have brought us record peace-time taxation. They’ve got the usual Socialist disease — they’ve run out of other people’s money.” 

Thatcher repeated the sentiment during a 1976 TV interview, saying: “Socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess. They always run out of other people’s money.” 
-Brianna Bailey 

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Stitt said: “In 2019, with no money in reserve, I insisted that we limit our spending and build up our savings account.”
Fact check: Mostly False 

It’s true that Stitt has focused on building up savings and has told state agencies to request flat budgets during his time in office. But Oklahoma had $451 million in its Rainy Day Fund in 2019, which was the state’s only reported savings account at the time, said Bonnie Campo, a spokeswoman for the Office of Management and Enterprise Services. 

Since then, Oklahoma has created additional savings accounts and now has roughly $4.3 billion in total savings, according to OMES. 
-Kayla Branch

Stitt said: “Medicaid is Exhibit A – driving massive spending growth while enabling waste. In 10 years, Medicaid is projected to eat up 37% of our annual budget – $6 billion.”
Fact check: Mixed 

Health care experts and government officials predict that many states will pay more for people who get health insurance through Medicaid in the coming years. The “One, Big Beautiful Bill” that Congress passed last summer included significant cuts to the federal government’s share of spending on Medicaid, requiring states to pick up more of the program’s cost. Federal funding accounts for about 77% of funding for SoonerCare, the state’s Medicaid program, and the Children’s Health Insurance Program.

The Oklahoma Health Care Authority, the state’s Medicaid agency, said it has not calculated any projections on state funding levels for the next decade. Stitt’s office said the $6 billion dollar figure he gave in his speech came from internal calculations by his office using previous and current state budget figures that assume the Legislature will fund the governor’s full budget request in Fiscal Year 2027. The governor’s calculations assume regular state appropriations will grow 12% annually and recurring state appropriations will grow 3% annually.
-Clifton Adcock

Stitt said: Oklahoma marijuana dispensaries “hide an industry that enables cartel activity, human trafficking, and foreign influence in our state.”
Fact check: Mixed

Organized crime networks operate many illegal marijuana farms in Oklahoma, and those operations sometimes involve human trafficking and, in some cases, are owned by foreign nationals with ties to political influence operations as The Frontier and ProPublica reported in 2024. According to law enforcement officials and industry insiders, local dispensaries sometimes purchase low-quality cannabis at a steep discount from illicit growers, but there is little evidence to support ties to organized crime at a significant scale.

A vast majority of the cannabis grown at illegal farms does not remain in the state. It is instead trafficked to other states and overseas, where it commands significantly higher prices than it would in Oklahoma’s highly competitive legal market.
-Garrett Yalch 

Stitt said: Oklahoma’s illegal marijuana industry remains “out of control” and is “nearly impossible to rein in.” 
Fact check: True

Despite repeated efforts to crackdown, illegal marijuana farms tied to organized crime continue to operate widely in Oklahoma under the guise of state-issued medical marijuana grow licenses. The Frontier reported in February 2025  that operations connected to criminal networks continued to operate and outmaneuver law enforcement even as state leaders declared the problem largely solved. In his 2024 State of the State address, Stitt said Oklahoma was no longer the “Wild West of Weed” and claimed the state had some of the strongest enforcement and oversight in the country. But in September 2025, the director of the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics testified before a U.S. congressional subcommittee that the estimated value of marijuana trafficked out of Oklahoma exceeded $150 billion that year. A New York Times investigation from December quoted a former DEA official who said Oklahoma’s industry is “far from under control.”
-Garrett Yalch

Stitt said: “We’ve seen median income increase by nearly $11,000.”
Fact check: True but misleading

While it is true that the median household income increased by $11,699 between 2019, when Stitt took office, and 2024, the growth still lags slightly behind the national average, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau. 

In 2024, the median household income in Oklahoma was $66,148, a 21.48% increase from 2019. The national average was $81,604 in 2024, a little more than a 24% increase since 2019. 

Oklahoma has one of the lowest median household incomes in the country, ranking 46th among the states, D.C. and Puerto Rico in 2024, according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates. Connecticut and Oregon, which have similar populations to Oklahoma, have median household incomes of $96,049 and $85,220 respectively. 

The cost of living has gone up nationwide, meanwhile Oklahoma’s minimum wage hasn’t strayed from the $7.25 an hour set in 2009. A 2025 report from United Way found nearly half of all Oklahoma households aren’t making enough to afford basic needs like housing and food. 
-Maddy Keyes

Rating system: 
True: A claim that is backed up by factual evidence
Mostly true: A claim that is mostly true but also contains some inaccurate details 
Mixed: A claim that contains a combination of accurate and inaccurate or unproven information 
True but misleading: A claim that is factually true but omits critical details or context 
Mostly false: A claim that is mostly false but also contains some accurate details 
False: A claim that has no basis in fact