Arizona Republic Corrects its Tax Credit Savings Estimate in Response to Cato Input
Last Wednesday, the Arizona Republic published a fiscal impact assessment of the state’s education tax credit programs for k-12 private school choice. While the story itself was a good faith effort, there were errors in both its data and assumptions. I wrote an op-ed intended for the Republic correcting those errors and e-mailed a copy to the story’s author, Ron Hansen, the same day his story was published.
While the paper’s editorial page expressed no interest in printing my submission, the Republic published a correction today based on the accurate spending and savings figures I provided. In a phone call, Hansen indicated that the correction was precipitated by my e-mail, though he opted not to mention that in his story, saying that he didn’t think the source of the correction was important.
On the one hand, Hansen and the Republic are to be commended for publishing a correction, and it should be noted that the bad data were provided to them by Arizona Director of School Finance, Yousef Awwad. On the other hand, their correction is incomplete — acknowledging only the bad data and not the mistaken assumption explained in my op-ed.
So while the Republic has now raised its savings estimate from their originally reported $3 million to a corrected $8.3 million, they have yet to explain that this figure could actually understate the total savings.
Still, their response is better than I expected. Most newspapers, in my experience, do absolutely nothing when factual and reasoning errors in their education stories are brought to their attention, and in fact go on to repeat those same errors in subsequent stories.
And they wonder why two thirds of the public now doubt their credibility….
Education Tax Credits Pass in Indiana
Despite the economy and the dogged opposition of powerful Big Ed, education tax credits are surviving and thriving. The latest state to jump into k-12 tax credits is Indiana. From the Friedman Foundation yesterday:
Indiana lawmakers today approved a $2.5 million scholarship tax credit program in the home state of the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice. The new scholarship program was inserted into the state’s budget and won approval in the late hours of the special legislative session. The bill, which passed the Senate 34-16 and the House 61-36, now goes to the governor who is anticipated to sign it in the coming days.
Unfortunately, the credit is only 50% for each dollar donated, unlike the more powerful ones in PA, FL, and AZ. But I know Friedman, School Choice Indiana and their allies will be fighting hard in coming years to increase the credit amount and program cap.
Sounds like Governor Mitch Daniels deserves kudos for keeping the bill in his budget and pushing for the program. And the word is that around 27 percent of the House Democrats voted for the budget despite the tax credit and virtual charter school programs that the teachers unions opposed. Big Ed ain’t what he used to be.
Education Tax Credits to Rescue Overturned Voucher Program
The AP reports on a plan unfolding in Arizona to help keep foster children and kids with disabilities in schools of their choice:
Republican-backed legislation to create new tax credits to help hundreds of foster children and disabled children attend private schools is advancing in the Legislature.
On a special session’s second day, Senate and House committees on Tuesday endorsed the bill creating new corporate and insurance premium tax credits for donations for private school tuition grants.
Priority would go initially to foster and disabled children who received vouchers that have been ruled unconstitutional by the Arizona Supreme Court.
The Arizona Supreme Court has specifically and emphatically upheld education tax credits, so this effort should succeed if passed and signed. The ever-wacky 9th Circuit Court of Appeals recently created some confusion over the details of tax credit program administration, but the credit approach to funding school choice has never been eliminated by the courts . . . they should be put back in their place on this case as they have in so many others.
Good luck to the children who had their voucher program overturned . . . this should be a no-brainer for the politicians.
School Choice Going, Going, Gone Bipartisan (In Some States)
The USA Today takes note of the fact that support for school choice is growing among Democratic, often black, politicians:
While vouchers will likely never be the clarion call of Democrats, they’re beginning to make inroads among a group of young black lawmakers, mayors and school officials who have split with party and teachers union orthodoxy on school reform. The group includes Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, Newark Mayor Cory Booker and former Washington, D.C., mayor Anthony Williams.
I’d only add that this broadening support is hardly limited to black Democrats, and that support for education tax credits is spreading even more quickly among Democrats. And while choice might never become a Democratic “clarion call,” it just might become the new consensus among serious education reformers in both parties.
For instance, a Democrat-controlled and, I assume, mostly white legislature in Rhode Island passed a donation tax credit. And Democratic governor and legislature in Iowa raised their tax credit dollar cap by 50 percent in 2007. The paper mentions black mayor Corey Booker’s support for school choice in New Jersey, but the white, former Democratic state party chair, and current state Senator Ray Lesniak is also pushing for a donation tax credit bill.
The model case is Florida. When the Florida legislature passed its education tax credit program to fund private school choice in 2001, only one Democrat supported the measure. Last year, the state legislature expanded the program with the votes of one third of statehouse Democrats, half the black caucus and the entire Hispanic caucus.
In the past few weeks, nearly a third of Senate Democrats and half of House Democrats voted to significantly expand the program’s revenue base. Virtually all Republicans did the same, and Republican Governor Crist is expected to sign the bill soon. In all, 43 percent of state Democratic legislators in Florida voted in favor of education tax credits.
The toothpaste is out, and the teachers unions can’t put it back in with all the dues money in the world.
Bipartisan Support for Choice Grows Every Year
When the Florida Legislature passed its education tax credit program in 2001, only one Democrat supported the measure.
Last year, the legislature expanded the program with votes from one third of statehouse Democrats, half the black caucus and the entire Hispanic caucus.
Last week, nearly half of House Democrats —47 percent—voted to significantly expand the revenue base for the state’s business donation tax credit program. House Republicans voted 100 percent in favor.
And yesterday, nearly a third of Senate Democrats—31 percent—voted to expand the tax credit program. And 92 percent of their Republican colleagues voted for the bill.
In all, 43 percent of state Democratic legislators voted in favor of education tax credits. Governor Crist is expected to sign the bill shortly.
They are not alone.
In 2006, Democratic governors in Arizona, Iowa and Pennsylvania signed new or expanded tax-credit initiatives. That same year, a Democrat-controlled legislature in Rhode Island passed a donation tax credit. A Democratic governor and legislature in Iowa raised their tax credit dollar cap by 50 percent in 2007.
Partisanship on choice is fading away because many politicians have come to realize that school choice saves money and children. The truth is beginning to spread; school choice is the most proven and effective systemic reform available.
The future of education reform is looking bright in the Sunshine State and across the nation.
The Sunshine State Lives Up to Its Name
Just when I was getting so jaded by federal education politics that I could have been displayed as part of this exhibit, the Sunshine State comes along and brightens my day.
It’s not just that the Florida Assembly voted to strenghten its k-12 scholarship tax credit program yesterday, it’s that the vote was 94 to 23. In addition to almost universal Republican support, the bill garnered the votes of half the entire state Democratic caucus!
As I wrote on this blog last year, “the [school choice] times they are a changin’.”
Democrats in Washington don’t understand that yet. Perhaps they spend too much time with DC’s NEA lobbyiests. Whatever the reason, the long term health of the Democratic Party depends on its celebration of its pro-school-choice state-level leaders. If the DNC embraces those state leaders and their policies, it will grow a heart, a brain, and a spine all at once, and secure its viability for the long term.
If they don’t, the national party’s current wretched treatment of poor families and cowtowing to education establishment special interests will drag it down to an ignominy from which it will not soon recover.
And as someone who prefers a balance of power between the two major political parties to the dominance of either, I really don’t want to see the DNC ride the NEA’s bandwagon off a cliff.
Filed under: Education and Child Policy; Government and Politics
9th Circuit Imitates Marcel Marceau
Last month, I warned that the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals would soon be handing the school choice movement a legal setback. Well, it’s here.
As expected, the 9th Circuit has reinstated a lower court challenge to Arizona’s scholarship donation tax credit program. The program allows taxpayers to contribute to non-profit Scholarship Tuition Organizations (STOs) that provide financial assistance to families choosing private schools. The taxpayers can then claim a dollar for dollar credit for their donation.
While this ruling leaves the program intact for the time being, it would almost surely require the tax credit program to be amended if it is allowed to stand. Fortunately, as I noted in my earlier post, the 9th Circuit is overturned as often as a caber at the Highland Games. Its ruling is unlikely to stand if appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
At issue is the fact that taxpayers are free to choose the STOs to which they donate their money, and private STOs are free to set criteria for the schools at which their scholarships can be redeemed. There are thus some STOs that offer scholarships only to religious schools. This is essentially the same situation that obtains when taxpayers claim deductions for contributions to non-profit charities. The charities can legally be religious or secular, and they can infuse the services they offer with religion, or not, as they choose. The whole thing is constitutional because it is the taxpayers, not the government, that decides which charity gets their funds. This is all settled law.
To get around the fact that the legal precedents were against it, the 9th Circuit decided to do a compelling impression of Marcel Marceau, pretending to hem itself into an invisible legal box. Specifically, the 9th Circuit decided to pretend that the constitutional restrictions limiting government expenditures (as in school voucher programs) also apply to the private funds at issue under tax credit programs.
That box, of course, does not exist. No government money is spent under the tax credit program, and the tax credits are themselves available on an entirely religiously neutral basis, in scrupulous conformance with the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.
So here’s my next legal prediction: the constitutionality of the Arizona education tax credit program will ultimately be upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, and opponents of educational freedom will have to resort to some new ploy in their efforts to herd American families back onto the public school plantation.
Filed under: Education and Child Policy; Law and Civil Liberties
The California Legislature Is Being Misled
The California Assembly Committee on Revenue and Taxation is holding hearings today on bill AB 279, the “Great Schools Tax Credit Act.” This bill is much like the scholarship donation tax credit program in Florida, which is a bi-partisan success that saves the state $1.49 for every $1 it reduces state revenue.
But you wouldn’t know that if you read the Committee’s remarkably flawed official Bill Analysis.
Among other things, the Bill Analysis glaringly misrepresents Adam Schaeffer’s ”Public Education Tax Credit” paper, incorrectly calls tax credited donations public funds, omits crucial findings from other states that favor credits, and engages in unsubstantiated speculation.
To address its failings, I penned the following letter which is being distributed to the committee today.
Dear California state legislators,
The official Bill Analysis of AB 279 suffers errors of fact and omission, misrepresents the findings of a paper published by my organization, and will mislead legislators unless these problems are corrected. To address these problems, I respectfully submit this letter. Read the rest of this post »
Filed under: Cato Publications; Education and Child Policy
Why Vouchers?
Yesterday a universal voucher bill heavily promoted by state Sen. Eric Johnson died in the Georgia legislature.
I can’t understand why anyone continues to push for a brand-new voucher program when they already have a universal education tax credit.
Tax credits are more popular and pose less of a threat to private schools and homeschoolers than vouchers, and Georgia already has a tax credit program. All they need to do is lift the cap on available tax credits, which is set at $50 million.
School choice programs actually save money — billions of dollars in fact — so there is no sense in capping the program, especially during an economic downturn.
And there is no sense in pushing for a new, inferior policy when you can focus your efforts on increasing funding for an existing law.
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