Idaho GOP Rejects School Voucher Bill
At Forbes.com, I take a look at the unusual news from Idaho— a voucher bill defeated by GOP senators. It shouldn’t be unusual, but for once, they actually identified the ways in which universal vouchers go against conservative values.
Like most of the current boilerplate ESA bills, it not only failed to provide for oversight for those funds, but actively barred the state from exercising any oversight or authority over the education providers.
There was a huge price tag involved. While the bill’s sponsors estimated a $45 million price tag for the first year, other estimates suggested that the program would quickly balloon to over $360 million. That expansion would match the experience of other states like New Hampshire, where the predicted cost of the program quickly grew by 5,800%.
As Senator C, Scott Grow (R-Eagle) put it, “I have absolutely no clue what the dollar amount on this is.”
It’s a huge amount of taxpayer money to be taken out of the public school system and distributed without oversight or accountability, and while conservative lawmakers in some states have not balked at that issue, some Idaho GOP members were not having it. Reported the Idaho Statesman:
“It’s actually against my conservative, Republican perspective to hand this money out with no accountability that these precious tax dollars are being used wisely,” said Sen. Dave Lent, R-Idaho Falls.