by David Safier
Yesterday I wrote how the Arizona Scholarship Fund (ASF) encourages parents to have friends and relatives take tuition tax credits and "recommend" the money go to that parents' kids. Ideally, ASF says, if they gather up enough recommenders, parents won't have to pay a penny for their kid's private school tuition.
I could have included lots more details in that post, but I wanted to make my point cleanly and clearly.
Here's one fun little detail I left out purposely, because it's so blatantly, deceptively absurd, I thought it deserved a post of its own.
One page of ASF's website declares,
"Gosh," I'm supposed to say to myself, "this is the only place where I can have donors make recommendations! I better use ASF instead of those other STOs." And if I'm reading a bit more carefully, I might say, "Well, if I want to choose among the non-discriminatory STOs — and I certainly don't want to use anyone who discriminates! — ASF is my only choice, at least if I want to have donors make recommendations about where their money goes."
But then I go to the "Non-discrimination" page on the website. The page is 2 sentences long. I'll start with the second sentence:
That's right. The reason "ASF is the only statewide, non-discriminatory STO that allows the donor to recommend their funds" is because it's THE ONLY STATEWIDE, TAX CREDIT ORGANIZATION WITH A NON-DISCRIMINATION POLICY!
[Sorry for shouting. I couldn't help myself.]
So ASF is in a category all by itself. Still, you have to admit, having a non-discriminatory policy is a good thing. Right?
ASF's non-discrimination policy is explained on the first sentence on the page:
I'm so happy to know someone out there doesn't discriminate against that oppressed minority, the rich. In fact, the ASF policy of having people of means gather together friends and relatives to take tuition tax credits and "recommend" their children for scholarships (after all, poor people don't pay enough in taxes to take advantage of the program) can be viewed as affirmative action for the well-to-do. It's about time someone was looking out for those poor little rich folks.
I have a much older friend who did some work in Public Choice way back in the day, who (long after he retired from such things) predicted that, in the absence of a parent tax credit, we’d see STOs pop up that provide an ersatz parent tax credit.
I’d say “that ain’t a bug, that’s a feature”, but something tells me that most of the characters in the legislature wouldn’t have expected that and don’t understand why parent tax credit=good and STOs=mess.