“The big thing that I didn’t hear, that I asked them to tell me in my opening remarks, was where are the jobs? It’s kind of like, ‘Where’s the beef?’”

That’s Rep. David Dank, R-Oklahoma City, irritated by what he did not hear Wednesday from speakers touting venture capital tax credits, particularly those administered by the Oklahoma Capital Investment Board and programs aimed at small businesses and rural ventures.

Dank co-chairs a joint task force reviewing some of the millions of dollars in tax credits Oklahoma offers to various types of businesses and industries.

“I’m focused on jobs and jobs creation,” Dank said Friday. “I think jobs are what build wealth.”

Dank stressed that he was not talking about jobs with an average annual wage of $24,000 or so, as outlined in economic impact reports from OCIB about the Venture Investment Program.

“That triggers those people into every welfare program that we have to offer, and the federal government,” he said. “It becomes a drain on the state.”

He asked what’s next, tax credits for jobs at discount stores or shopping malls?

“We can’t be doing that,” he said.

Dank wants more than mere statements.

“When somebody builds a plant, I can go out there and see the plant,” he said. “I can watch the people drive up and go to work. I can go to the employment security commission and get their records and know that they’re paying taxes, and feel good about it. But whenever you just tell me that we’ve created this many jobs and, for whatever reason, you won’t tell me where they are or how much the people are being paid, that’s unacceptable.”

The task force’s next meeting, scheduled for Sept. 7, will focus on the Quality Jobs Act and the various incentives it provides, as well as the Investment/New Jobs tax credit.

“I want the answers to all of them,” Dank said. “What are they doing? How do the benefits match up to the cost to the taxpayers?”

The co-chairman said that is something he did not get from speakers explaining the results of the OCIB and other capital tax credit programs, and he’s disappointed.

“I’ve got the cost down pat,” Dank said. “I know what it’s costing us, and it’s costing us multi-millions of dollars. But, I don’t see the benefits there, to the state. I see them to some of the companies, both in state and out of state, but I don’t see them to us as taxpayers.”

Dank said that to his way of thinking, few if any of the tax incentives he’s seen outlined at meetings thus far pass the test for constitutional tax credits outlined in a recent attorney’s general opinion: A public purpose, adequate consideration, controls and safeguards.

He said the tax credits for small business and rural small business capital companies sunset at the end of the year.

“They’re history,” Dank said. “If we do anything with venture capital and that area in the future, it’s going to have to be a brand new deal.”

That “deal” will have to go through a subcommittee he chairs.

“That’s not going to be easy to do,” Dank said.

He is also targeting the concept of transferability of tax credits, by means of which credits can be sold to insurance companies or other businesses to help defray their tax bills. He’s having legislation drafted to abolish the practice.

“I just think, if you can’t use them, you lose them,” he said.

Dank said he sees no sense in the state handing out $1 million in tax credits to one company, which can sell them to another for $800,000, for a benefit of $200,000.

“Why didn’t we just give the first company $800,000 and save ourselves $200,000?” he said. “I just think it reeks of bad public policy.”