Anti-market machinations in Pennsylvania

Under the guise of increased accountability, opponents of market education are calling for more regulation of Pennsylvania's scholarship donation tax credit.

The program, officially called the EITC (Education Improvement Tax Credit) allows businesses to make donations to private scholarship funds that subsidize tuition at independent schools, and receive a tax credit to cover most of the cost of their donation.

Die-hard market education opponents want the program dead. They want every program like it dead. And they will do anything to kill it.

Their current tactic is to try to smother the program with regulations on the grounds that regulation will increase accountability. That argument is simply wrong. The way the program is currently designed, market forces make the program far more accountable to both parents and tax-payers than any body of regulation possibly could. In fact, further regulation would only interfere with the operation of market forces and impede the program's functioning.

I wrote a short memo on the subject of market accountability versus regulatory "accountability" under education tax credit programs a few weeks ago, and you can find it here.

People of Pennsylvania: Don't let the school monopolists kill this path-breaking program!