The Fraud Of GOP Tax And School Choice Policy Shown In Arizona

[Are_grits_groceries]

Here I want to draw attention to the August winner of Hillman's "The Sidney", an investigative series by Ryan Gabrielson and Michelle Reese in the East Valley Tribune Newspaper, from metropolitan Phoenix, about taxpayer subsidized school tuition credit abuse in Arizona. One of the constant refrains emanating from the conservative right is "school choice" and, of course, their standard refrain on tax policy. Both areas are flimsy fronts for class warfare and further unjust enrichment of the already privileged. Gabrielson and Reese have exposed a dirty example of this particular area of the GOP mantra.

In the mid to late 1990s, a group of dogmatic conservative Republican leaders, led by Arizona Congressman Trent Franks and a leading GOP school reform and voucher advocate, Lisa Graham Keegan, saw an opportunity to implement some of the pet school reform projects of national conservative Republican think tanks in the Arizona school system as test cases. The results were as predictable as they are bleak:

The state's Private School Tuition Tax Credits program covers the cost of private education, often for children whose parents could afford to pay it themselves - while allowing affluent families to reduce the amount of income tax they pay into the state's general fund.

To date, Arizona's main bank account has lost $350 million to private schools. The price tag is growing as the state grapples with the most serious financial crisis in its history, and people who depend on the general fund - public school children, the disabled, the poor and the sick - face severe cuts in services.

Under the program, taxpayers give money to nonprofit charities called school tuition organizations, or STOs for short. STOs give scholarships to children for private school tuition, and the state provides donors a dollar-for-dollar tax credit in exchange for their contribution.

The tax credit law, signed by Gov. Fife Symington in 1997, is touted as a tool to make private education more accessible to families who could not otherwise afford it.

Instead, it has fostered a rigged system that keeps private education a privilege for the already privileged.

Full investigative series: http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/page/taxcredits

This is what happens when conservative Republicans put their charming policies into action, the rich win and the people and the states lose; it is not a bug, it is a feature. Republicans constantly tout themselves as the party putting "money back in the taxpayer's pockets"; just keep in mind whose pockets they are really talking about, because in practice it is only the pockets of the wealthy, powerful and privileged. Our public school systems should not be weakened by such class warfare and redistribution of public wealth.

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2009/09/27/the-fraud-of-gop-tax-and-school-choice-policy-shown-in-arizona/

This is why I am leery of the "charter schools & choice" mantra. Instead of working to really reform public schools, a lot of people want to use this as a way to get the government to pay for another layer of schools that aren't really geared to all people.

I don't doubt that some charter schools work. However, the administration and Duncan are betting billions of dollars on testing and charter schools to "reform" the country. I just have a feeling this will end up as another boondoggle for the wealthy.

The RW isn't screaming about this government interference, and it is as broad as any health care mandate ever will be. In addition, this would entangle their little darlings in socialiam. They know about it, but there aren't teabaggers ranting about this because this is socialism that they like.

They probably have been planning for years to try this, and now it is being given to them. I have bets that they already have plans to subvert the system, and turn it into a more RW policy anywhere they can.