From the Academy: Taxes and Vouchers

‘Down with property taxes! Up with education!” So cry the advocates of the Voucher Plan, a proposed amendment to Michigan’s constitution, placed on the November ballot by initiative petition. If the citizenry approves the amendment, a new pattern for financing public instruction may spread rapidly to other states.

Michigan’s plan, called “Proposition H,” has three principal features. First, it abolishes the property tax as a means of raising school-district revenues. In effect, this would mean a two-thirds reduction in the property-tax bills of most Michigan taxpayers; in some school districts, it would reduce property taxes by more than 70 per cent. Second, it authorizes the state legislature to establish a program of general taxation to support schools. (This would produce some substantial increase in state income taxes, sales taxes, or business taxes.) Third, it provides for freedom of choice in education: that is, the state would issue “vouchers” which might be applied to tuition at any school—“public,” church-related, or independent.

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Russell Kirk

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‘Down with property taxes! Up with education!” So cry the advocates of the Voucher Plan, a proposed amendment to Michigan’s constitution, placed on the November ballot by initiative petition. If the citizenry approves the amendment, a new pattern for financing public instruction may spread rapidly to other states.

Michigan’s plan, called “Proposition H,” has three principal features. First, it abolishes the property tax as a means of raising school-district revenues. In effect, this would mean a two-thirds reduction in the property-tax bills of most Michigan taxpayers; in some school districts, it would reduce property taxes by more than 70 per cent. Second, it authorizes the state legislature to establish a program of general taxation to support schools. (This would produce some substantial increase in state income taxes, sales taxes, or business taxes.) Third, it provides for freedom of choice in education: that is, the state would issue “vouchers” which might be applied to tuition at any school—“public,” church-related, or independent.