Last week, Congress, by a razor-thin margin, passed a tax-and-spend plan dubbed the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act.” President Donald Trump signed it into law July 4.
Despite its name, the bill is more brutal than beautiful. The cuts to food assistance, Medicaid, and renewable energy programs have rightfully gotten a lot of attention – people will lose health care, families will lose nutrition assistance, rural hospitals will close and more.
Tucked in the 870-page bill are a lot of other caustic, controversial and questionable provisions that haven’t gotten as much attention – including the first-ever national private school voucher program, which is straight from the Project 2025 playbook and pushed by billionaire-backed pro-voucher groups.
There’s a reason they had to sneak vouchers into this big, brutal bill. Because even with powerful backers, private school vouchers are wildly unpopular and can’t actually pass Congress using the regular legislative process. The special rules that applied to this budget bill were the only way voucher proponents could force the voucher scheme through and even then, the provision was nearly struck from the bill. Senators from both parties voted in favor of Sen. Mazie Hirono’s (D-Hawaii) amendment to get rid of the voucher scheme, but in the end, fell one vote short. Still, it was one of the few amendments during the marathon debate to get that kind of support.
The bipartisan opposition to vouchers came even after the provision underwent a bunch of changes to make it seem less bad. Billionaires lost their tax shelter to get out of paying capital gains taxes. Voucher-granting organizations lost the ability to market vouchers to students outside their state – so a student in Colorado can’t get a voucher from an organization in Florida.
At one point, they even added language to cover up the fact that vouchers are bad for students with disabilities. (Voucher proponents said the provision, which would have required private voucher schools’ admissions policies not to take into account whether a student has an Individualized Education Program but did not ensure the full protections of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, was a “poison pill” and it was stripped out.)
But make no mistake, this national voucher program is devastating. It’s a permanent program that has no limits on how big it can get. One estimate suggests it could cost $50 billion per year. That’s $50 billion in federal taxpayer dollars spent to subsidize students from wealthy families who can already afford to send their children to private, mostly religious schools. Our tax dollars should instead support our public schools, which serve everyone and educate 90% of students in the country.
And we know that this is just the first step to spending even more federal tax dollars on vouchers. In fact, the billionaire-backed groups are already vowing to expand the program.
The bipartisan opposition to the voucher program and the last-minute changes to how it works were thanks in part to actions taken by grassroots activists, including AU supporters. Countless emails to congressional offices, text banks, lobby visits, and talking about how harmful vouchers are with friends and family all made a difference.
And because of this, we’ll be ready if Congress takes up the invitation to make this voucher boondoggle even worse.
Photo by Alex Brandon – Pool/Getty Images
