The ‘Big Beautiful Bill’: Trading liberty for school vouchers

By Israel Igualate

For the first time in our nation’s history, Congress has created a national school voucher scheme that directs federal tax dollars to private, often religious, schools. Disguised as a tax credit, the program was tucked into the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” the budget reconciliation package which passed with only Republican support and was signed by President Donald Trump on July 4.

Under this new law, individuals can claim a dollar-for-dollar federal tax credit (up to $1,700 each year) for contributions to nonprofit scholarship-granting organizations. There is no other federal tax program that provides a full refund for donations. Those organizations then provide tuition scholarships to families sending their children to private schools, including religious schools. On paper, it looks like philanthropy. In practice, it means every taxpayer is now draining public funds to subsidize religious education.

This scheme threatens two pillars of American life: our public schools and our religious freedom.

Public schools, already stretched to serve the vast majority of America’s children, will face even deeper shortfalls as federal dollars are rerouted into private institutions. The promise of equal opportunity for all students weakens when resources are drained away to fund private education for a select few.

Even more alarming, this voucher system erodes the very principle of religious liberty. The First Amendment ensures that government stays out of religious formation, leaving families and faith communities free to teach and practice their faith without interference. By using federal tax credits to fund religious schools, Congress has entangled government and religion in ways our Founders warned against.

But this story is not finished. The voucher program only takes effect in states that opt in. Through a yet-to-be-determined process, states will soon be tasked with deciding whether to bring this scheme to their states. That means communities still have a choice: to stand for public schools and for religious freedom, or to accept a system that undermines both.

The decision before us is stark. On a holiday meant to celebrate liberty, Congress chose to erode it. It will soon be up to the states, and to all of us, to insist on upholding it.

What happened?
The Budget Reconciliation Bill — also known as the “One Big Beautiful Bill” — passed the Senate July 1, with Vice President JD Vance casting a tiebreaking vote, and it passed the House on July 3. It retains a modified version of the National School Voucher Program in which states can opt into the program. The House of Representatives originally passed a version of the bill May 22 that included a more robust voucher program, but on June 27, the Senate Parliamentarian ruled that the program violates the Byrd Rule and had to be removed from the bill. However, a modified version was added back in before the Senate vote on July 1.

The “Big Beautiful Bill” really is a big, bad betrayal of religious freedom in order to provide tax cuts for the wealthy, offsetting trillions in tax cuts by cutting health care and nutrition programs. Even with those cuts, according to the Congressional Budget Office, it will add nearly $3.5 trillion to the deficit over the next decade. Meanwhile, the national school voucher program alone is projected to add $26 billion to the national deficit over the next ten years.