In a 5 – 4 decision, the Supreme Court has ruled that it is constitutional for states to offer tax credits in exchange for donations funding private school scholarships. From the Associated Press:
The Supreme Court rejected a challenge Monday to an Arizona tax break that directs millions of dollars to private religious schools.
The justices, in a 5-4 ruling, said that Arizona taxpayers who filed a lawsuit to block the tax break have no legal claim because they are not forced to contribute to the state program that sends money to the religious schools. …
The major complaint about the law has been that state money has wound up in the coffers of religious schools.
But Kennedy rejected the idea that the money at issue belongs to the state. “Contributions result from the decisions of private taxpayers regarding their own funds,” he said.
The taxpayers who object to the program have an insufficient connection to the money involved to take their complaint to federal court, Kennedy said. The Obama administration argued aggressively for the outcome the court reached Monday.
Right now, Gov. Chris Christie is fighting to institute a similar program in New Jersey, although it would be businesses getting the tax credits (and making the donations), not individuals. Currently, there are seven states offering some type of tax credit program to help students attend private schools.
I believe your title is misleading.
The way I read the opinion, the Supreme Court did not rule that tax credits for private schools were constitutional. It ruled that taxpayers did not have standing to challenge the credits in court.
This is actually a very conservative opinion and might forecast a finding that the challengers to the new health care laws have no standing.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWhat was the "reasoning" of the four geniuses who voted against this?!
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe Court didn't reach the constitutionality of the program at all, but rather held that the plaintiffs lacked article III standing to challenge it.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseSooo...why don't we just send all kids to private schools? I know of no private school in my area (state, possibly?) that charges more than the annual cost per pupil of the public system.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI'm anticipating a union backed drive to unseat conservative supreme court justices any day now.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuseand yes, I know that the only way to get rid of an SC justice is impeachment.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI haven't yet read the decision as Allan has, but if the court ruled on basis of standing, then it is not a decision on the merits of constitutionality. However, if taxpayers do not have standing, then there is in reality no one with standing to make a faci*l. There could be as applied challenges, but it appears to me that the Arizona law is applied in a non-sectarian way, so there may be none. This procedural ruling might very well dispose of the whole issue.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAllan: The court ruled that the plaintiffs had no standing because it wasn't their, or the state's money that was going to the schools.
That degree of distance does not exist with the ObamaCare.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"Sooo...why don't we just send all kids to private schools?"
For that, you can thank the teacher's unions, and their puppets in congress.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIf I remember correctly, there was a time when there were no public schools. The wealthy were educated, the poor not so much. Some time in the 19th century, public schools became the norm. IMHO, this helped fuel the US economy for generations to come.
A true market economy would have no public schools and no school vouchers. Without that, there will be rent seeking. Today, the public school systems seek the rent. Without them, but with public funding, private schools would seek the rent.
This is not mean I am for or against public, private (parochial or not) schools. It just means that the way schools are funded today has little to do with anything.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAllan: There may have been no public schools, however that does not mean that only the rich were educated. There has always been widespread home schooling. At the time of the Revolution, literacy was pretty close to 100% in the US. (Higher than it is today.)
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseEr, what? Maybe in parts of Boston. Most of the country was illiterate though, and particularly in the South. The slave population probably had about a 1% literacy rate.
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