Everywhere members of Congress went during the congressional recess, they heard Americans tell them that improving education was their No. 1 priority.
“It is amazing how anxious people are about it,” said Sen. Carol Moseley-Braun (D-Ill.). “At the top of the list,” said Senate Republican Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.).
Back to work on Capitol Hill on Monday after two weeks of getting an earful in their districts, members of both parties quickly turned these grass-roots concerns about education into the top political issue for this fall’s midterm elections.
Republicans staged a rally on the Capitol grounds in favor of a bill that would establish tax-free education savings accounts.
The Senate’s top Democrat, Tom Daschle of South Dakota, said President Clinton would veto the measure while pushing the Democratic initiative.
Besides the tax-free education accounts, which also could go to parents of children attending private schools, the GOP is proposing creation of a massive “block grant” of education funds to states and localities.
“Education is probably as defining an issue for us and Republicans that you are going to see all year,” Daschle told reporters.
Democrats plan to offer a proposal, introduced by Moseley-Braun, to enable the states to float $22 billion worth of bonds to build and renovate schools nationwide. The federal government would pay all the interest.
Daschle also promised support for other aspects of Clinton’s education agenda, such as making funds available to hire 100,000 new teachers in poor districts.
Moseley-Braun said she had few illusions that her construction plan would pass the Republican-controlled Senate, but she believes a better campaign issue would be hard to find. The debate could set the stage for action next year, she said.
Democrats hope to put Republicans on record against school construction by forcing a vote on Moseley-Braun’s amendment.
Daschle said that 14 million children go to schools in need of renovation and that too many students attend classes in temporary trailers.
Daschle also said Republican leaders were falling prey to a “right-wing agenda” in insisting that much of the education budget be converted into a $10.3 billion block grant, which would allow localities to decide how to spend the money. “They want to dismantle the Education Department,” he said.
He conceded that the tax-free education accounts proposal, sponsored by Sen. Paul Coverdell (R-Ga.), likely would pass the Senate, perhaps as early as Wednesday. Several Democrats, including Sen. Robert Torricelli (D-N.J.), support these accounts but not other GOP education proposals that will be offered as amendments.
While Republicans said Democrats want Washington to control education, Democrats said the GOP’s education accounts would undermine public education, benefit the wealthiest Americans and, once implemented, provide only a pittance for parents.
Under the Coverdell bill, parents, grandparents or scholarship organizations could contribute $2,000 a year in after-tax dollars to the accounts. Withdrawals to pay for educational expenses from kindergarten through the 12th grade would be tax-free.
Also under the bill, state prepaid tuition plans, in which families would finance their children’s college education in advance, would be tax-free.
The measure revived a longstanding debate about the use of tax incentives to benefit families who send their children to private schools.
Moseley-Braun called it a “back-door voucher plan” that amounts to public financing of private schools.
Americans United for Separation of Church and State, an organization representing many church groups, said the religious Right is behind the bill.
“Congressional leaders know two things for sure: Elections are a few months away and the religious Right wants them to pass this bill,” the organization said.
But the Family Research Council, a conservative organization, said that the bill would allow families to save their own money and would not, as opponents claim, undermine public schools.
The council cited a study by the Senate-House Joint Tax Committee estimating that 14 million students would benefit from the measure, 75 percent of them in public schools.
But, as with all controversial measures, estimates differ according to who does the figuring and what assumptions are made. Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.) cited Treasury Department figures concluding that 70 percent of all the tax benefits would go to the top 20 percent of all income earners.
“It will merely provide new tax breaks to families already able to afford private schools for their children,” Moynihan said.
In any case, the benefits would be small, according to Daschle, who said the average family with a child in public schools would receive an average of $7 a year tax break, while those with a child in private schools would get a $37 annual tax break. The GOP disputed this claim, saying families could earn thousands of dollars in tax-free interest to help pay educational expenses.
Republicans showed they had learned from Clinton about how to practice the politics of education. In the rally on behalf of the bill on the Capitol grounds, they summoned school children from Washington, D.C., to speak for it.
Elementary children held up signs for the cameras pushing ideas that even adults might have a hard time grasping. One said, “Block grants are best for America.”
