[StBernard] EDITORIAL: Blanco veto was justified

[Westley Annis]

EDITORIAL: Blanco veto was justified

Periodically, the press office will publish editorials and columns that feature Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco's work in various areas. 

The News Star: Blanco veto was justified
Published: July 3, 2007
View the article <http://www.thenewsstar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070731/OPINION01/707310308/1014/OPINION>  


We are delighted that parents in Louisiana have so many good options - public, private, parochial, home school - when it comes to educating their school-age children.
Ensuring that our children are literate, responsible people who are fully prepared for the workplace and for their places in a free society is among the most important challenges parents face.

Moreover, it is the state's responsibility to provide adequate public schools charged with educating our children. Local school systems must provide competent teachers and place students in clean, safe and comfortable schools that serve as good learning environments. 

None of that is cheap. Tax dollars collected at all levels of government contribute to ensuring that public schools - they serve the overriding majority of students in our state and nation - contribute to the cause of making sure our schools fulfill their roles.
That's why fully funding public schools through tax dollars is incumbent upon all of us - not only parents who choose to send their children to public schools but also others who hope to benefit by living in an educated community.

A bill passed in the recently concluded session of Louisiana Legislature would have granted income tax deductions of up to 50 percent of the cost of tuition, up to $5,000 for parents who choose private or parochial schools over public schools. Gov. Kathleen Blanco vetoed the legislation, Senate Bill 45, expressing the concern that it would subsidize private schools at the "expense of public school children." Blanco was right.

The premise for the bill was flawed from the outset. Sen. Rob Marionneaux, D-Livonia, said the tax break was warranted for parents of private school children because they pay taxes for public schools but the state doesn't have to pay to educate them. But couldn't the same be said for childless couples, who also pay taxes for public schools but have no children who use them? Shouldn't they, too, get a break? Or parents whose children have graduated public schools? They, too, continue to pay taxes for public schools, usually long after their children use them.

In fact, taxpayers support public schools not because they educate our own children at a certain place in time but because the public schools provide a common good for all time. Public schools educate generations of students - our own children, in some cases, or the children of others - who, properly educated, take roles and positions of responsibility in society. Public schools educate doctors, nurses, soldiers, engineers, police, teachers, public officials and others whose contributions to society fall beneficially over us all.

While the public schools provide one option for parents who can afford an alternative - and there is nothing wrong with having options - the public schools in many cases provide the only option for other parents. To remove money from the pool of cash that keeps public schools operating - when you provide tax breaks, you diminish the cash pool - would undermine the public school system.

Blanco did the right thing.

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