Vouchers: a dirty word and a bad idea
The pro-voucher crowd is still trying to deny that Senate Bill 4, the voucher bill approved by the Senate, is a voucher bill. At least one voucher advocate, Jeff Patterson, executive director of the Texas Catholic Conference, has been making the rounds of legislators and reporters, apparently trying to dupe them into thinking the tax-credit scholarships that would be created by the bill are not vouchers.
According to the Texas Tribune, Patterson is claiming that TSTA and other voucher opponents are misusing the term, voucher, as a “dirty word.”
Well, folks, a private school voucher is a “dirty word” as well as a bad idea, and the term is correctly applied to the tax credits proposed by Senate Bill 4. Those tax credits would be designed to encourage businesses to donate money for scholarships for private school tuition by reducing the state franchise taxes that the businesses otherwise would have to pay. So, private schools would receive funding that otherwise would have gone into the state treasury for public schools and other public needs.
That clearly makes Senate Bill 4 a voucher bill.
Click on the link below to see a video explaining the subterfuge and the “ouch” in vouchers. It is by Raise Your Hand Texas, a public schools advocate and TSTA ally in the anti-voucher fight.
