I can (possibly) understand the concern that if we allow vouchers to proliferate at the K12 education level we would be conflating church and state. The reason of course is that many of the private alternatives that would be chosen by voucher recipients would be religious institutions. Fine. But then I have two questions:
(1) Would you favor an ending of the tax exempt status of churches and other religious institutions? After all, I hear all this talk among “tax reformers” that “tax expenditures” are real expenditures and should perhaps be ended in an effort to get the federal government’s fiscal house in order. What are tax expenditures? These would include things like the mortgage interest deduction (which I think I favor eliminating). When we allow taxpayers to deduct mortgage interest from their taxable income, then the government collects less in taxes. This is the same as spending more in an accounting sense, but such spending does not show up in the formal budgets. OK, if these tax expenditures are a problem (and they are particularly indicted as a problem because the “rich” benefit from them) AND if you believe in the separation of church and state, then wouldn’t you also have to be consistent and support the elimination of the tax exempt status of any religious institution? I would support this change. Would you?
(2) If the reason you oppose vouchers is that you wish to preserve the separation of church and state, then why do you actually oppose vouchers as a concept? Shouldn’t you support vouchers that are to be used at only at secular schools? And wouldn’t you also support a rebate of tax payments to those people that choose to home school their children? If not, why not? Remember, I am not asking about “taking money away from public schools” I am asking about the separation of church and state arguments.
I am opposed to vouchers since I see them as a Faustian bargain. They still involve taking money from others at the muzzle of a gun. The economics are clearly superior to the present situation, but I still have a problem with the moral component of forcing a neighbor to finance my child’s education.
Re: “AND if you believe in the separation of church and state, then wouldn’t you also have to be consistent and support the elimination of the tax exempt status of any religious institution?”
No, because taxation of a church is the state interacting with (specifically imposing on) the church. True total separation (which we don’t have, and I’m not calling for), would mean that the state was not in any way above, in control of, or able to regulate, the church. The church would not be subject to the law at all. That would be a bad thing (imagine organized crime setting up churches, or current churches starting to do some of the same things that organized crime groups do now), but it would be separation.
What the constitution actually calls for is not separation, its free exercise and no establishment of churches. IMO that would allow vouchers as long as they are also available to secular schools, and schools of different religious denominations, and as long as students or their parents where directing the vouchers rather than government.