Writing for the Bucks County Beacon, Peter Greene explains why Pennsylvania’s governor should reject Trump’s school voucher program.
Democratic Governors Jared Polis of Colorado and Kathy Hochul of New York have both agreed to join in Donald Trump’s pet program for schools, and now eyes are turning toward Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, urging him to bring the state under the Trumpian education wing.
He should not. Here’s why.
The federal voucher program
When the GOP passed Trump’s so-called One Big Beautiful Bill, they included the Education Choice for Children Act, the first-ever federal school voucher program. When she was Education Secretary, Betsy DeVos tried hard to make “Education Freedom” scholarships work, but failed; now they are back with a new coat of paint.
The program is a “tax credit scholarship” program, offering an unprecedented dollar-for-dollar tax credit for up to $1,700 donated to the program. Those collected dollars would in turn be used to fund education vouchers for students in participating states.
Why a tax credit scholarship
Tax credit scholarships were created as a work-around for school vouchers. School vouchers are used primarily for paying tuition for private religious schools. In many states, there are both legal and political barriers to giving state tax dollars to private religious schools. Supporters of tax credit scholarships argue that since the money bypasses the government, no taxpayer funds are spent on private schools; the money has been laundered clean of any government association.
This is a distinction without a difference. Imagine the following scenario.
Your spouse sends you to collect the $100 that your brother owes you, and tells you that you had better not spend any of that money on beer, because you need it for groceries. So you go to see your brother and you make a deal—he can just give you $50 and two cases of beer, and you’ll call it even. Quiz question: when you get home and explain to your spouse that you didn’t spend a cent on beer, will your spouse smile and say, “Right you are. I have no reason to be upset.” Also, you will still be $50 short in your grocery budget.
That’s why most states with tax credit scholarships (including Pennsylvania, but we’ll get back to that) have a limit on how many tax credits can be claimed: because every tax credit issued to fund the vouchers leaves a corresponding hole in state revenues.
There is no upper limit on the amount of tax credits the federal program will allow. The federal program has one advantage over state programs; while states must balance their budgets, the feds will be able to just add the revenue shortfall to the budget deficit.
There are more reasons. Read the full article here.