1. United States
2. Iowa
3. Letter

Fiscal and Federalism Concerns About the Education Freedom Tax Credit I am a constituent of yours, and I am writing to ask you to reconsider your support for the Education Freedom Tax Credit, also known as the Educational Choice for Children Act (ECCA), which is set to take effect for participating states on January 1, 2027. My concerns are not about school choice itself, but about the cost, structure, and federal reach of this particular program. Education has traditionally been a matter for states and local communities, not Washington. More than a dozen states already operate their own tax-credit scholarship programs without federal involvement, and they have done so effectively. This federal program inserts Washington into a policy space states already handle well, and it creates a permanent federal funding mechanism and federal statute governing K-12 scholarship organizations going forward. The program is also fiscally unrestrained. It was enacted as part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act with no cap on total contributions, and independent estimates project it will reduce federal revenue by more than $130 billion over the next decade, a figure that will grow as more states opt in. At a time when fiscal conservatives in Congress are pushing to rein in federal spending and the deficit, an open-ended program like this is difficult to defend on cost grounds alone. There is also a donor-benefit problem worth your attention. Because the credit functions as a full, dollar-for-dollar reimbursement, and because donors can contribute appreciated stock to avoid capital gains taxes on top of the credit itself, the largest financial benefit flows disproportionately to a small number of wealthy donors rather than the working families the program is marketed to help. That structure should concern anyone skeptical of government programs that function as tax shelters for the already wealthy. Finally, I would ask you to consider the long-term risk to the religious and private schools this program is meant to support. Once a federal funding and reporting infrastructure exists, it creates a mechanism that a future administration, of either party, could use to attach compliance mandates, curriculum requirements, or reporting obligations to participating Scholarship Granting Organizations and the schools they fund. Many religious schools have historically declined federal money for exactly this reason: to preserve their independence from federal oversight. This program creates that exposure where none previously existed at the federal level. I am asking you to: 1. Support repeal of the Education Freedom Tax Credit provisions of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act before they take effect, or, at minimum, 2. Introduce or support legislation imposing a hard annual cap on total credits, a sunset provision requiring reauthorization, and explicit statutory language prohibiting any future administration from conditioning participation on curriculum, staffing, or compliance mandates. 3. Require transparency reporting from Scholarship Granting Organizations on how funds are distributed and to which schools, so taxpayers can evaluate whether the program is achieving its stated goals. I would appreciate knowing where you stand on these specific concerns and what action, if any, you intend to take. Thank you for your attention to this matter.