EDITORIAL
EXTENDING AID TO EDUCATION The Carter administration's Middle Income College Assistance Act is a glossy package that increases overall educational spending by 18 percent— a good investment by any...
...Just last month a federal judge in Newark struck down a New Jersey state income tax law that provided a $ 1,000 tax deduction for each child in a non-public school The constitutionality question is a very real one, but we line up with that substantial body of constitutional law, yers who believe that ways can be found to aid private and religious school-families...
...More and more middle-class families have found it difficult to cope with costs such as these...
...It is better that this time they stay on the sidelines, and that the aid question be thrashed out in the political arena, where the PackwoodMoynihan bill belongs...
...Shortly after the publication of her article, Daniel Webster, one of the inmates of North Carolina's death row, took his own life with a razor blade, dramatically illustrating his own suicidal drive [News & Views, Dec...
...The people are demanding it...
...Can Christianity find a broader criterion for morality that will bring goodness closer to the loving that frees others from selfconcern to love in their turn, as Jesus did...
...Or will Christianity remain a haven for those who want the comfort of a commitment to the loving Jesus without the discomfort of a commitment to help and share with their fellowman, a platitude to justify selfinterest, with love distorted into the self-righteous duty to save the world for our own personal salvation, becoming a force for evil rather than good...
...By exercising his freedom to choose, man becomes responsible for good and evil and can never be free of this responsibility to live the childlike existence of Eden...
...If we were never found in the ranks of those who crusaded for federal and state aid, one reason is that we have objected to the single-mindedness with which objectives were pursued...
...Can Christian love become the impetus for a sharing, cooperating world...
...To the Editors: The article by Sister Lois Spear in the November 25 issue underscores one of the frequently neglected arguments against the death penalty, namely, that it most probably induces some persons to murder...
...Incidentally, support of aid extending to private and religious education is not a novel position for Commonweal...
...There is no question but that the Carter program moves in the right direction...
...We find it inadequate because it deals with only one problem level of education in this country, leaving out entirely the question of financial relief for families with children in private and religious elementary and secondary schools...
...Over the years we have opposed those who argued dogmatically that the First Amendment necessarily excluded any kind of public aid to private and religious schools...
...The bishops have undercut too many legitimate aid hopes in the past...
...We would still stand apart if the tactics were to shoot cannons across bows...
...The tax credits would be calculated on the basis of 50 percent of tuition expenses up to $1,000, with negative-balance features written into the measure so that families that paid more in tuition than they did in taxes could have their taxes canceled and conceivably could receive a compensating government check as well...
...Similarly we have held that the common good and sound public policy made some types of public assistance feasible, legal and desirable...
...In the belief that they are right, we support the Packwood-Moynihan bill...
...They have been seriously neglected by educational aid programs over long years, and President Carter was aware enough of their plight during his campaign to promise to find constitutionally acceptable methods to aid families who chose this alternative to public schools...
...The grant 131 provisions appear slim—$250, for instance, is not a substantive amount when laid against tuition, room and board costs that mount into the several thousands of dollars...
...But so far as we are concerned, this is only the beginning of difficulties with the middle-income educational assistance act...
...We feel quite the opposite...
...132 lost forever the fairy tale land of Eden...
...so would those sending children to private and religious elementary and secondary schools...
...EXTENDING AID TO EDUCATION The Carter administration's Middle Income College Assistance Act is a glossy package that increases overall educational spending by 18 percent— a good investment by any yardstick—and earmarks $1.46 billion in grants and loans to students who were previously ineligible because of family income and assets...
...The Packwood-Moynihan bill could cost the government $4 billion, according to unofficial estimates...
...President Carter has said that he will not accent a tax-credit measure, thus foreboding veto...
...A state senator said to me several months ago with regard to capital punishment, "We do not know if it is a deterrent or not, but we have to do something...
...This is no trifling sum, but nothing a government cannot afford which is concerned about equity for all its citizens and which is interested in the survival of alternative educational systems—for the leaven these can be in society, if not for the cost burdens they relieve in school district after school district...
...Specifically, the administration appears to be taking aim at the Tuition Tax Credit Act of 1977, introduced by Senators Robert Packwood and Daniel Moynihan, which would offer tax credits of up to $500 across the educational board...
...At the same time, they have found themselves shut out of federal aid programs by incomes that for many have slipped back against inflation and by assets, such as a private home, which are generally not fluid...
...College costs have jumped 71 percent between 1967 and 1975, reaching $2,000 a year for students attending public institutions and $4,000 and up for those in private colleges and universities, exclusive of, room and board...
...at some colleges grant amounts would hardly cover extracurricular fees...
...Advocates of the Pack, wood-Moynihan bill believe that this is a way, since the bill is designed to aid all taxpayers and not a particular group...
...There are diflkulties, however, in the proposed program...
...A oncemodest home is suddenly a $35,000 asset...
...The Carter administration seems opposed to tax credits principally on the grounds of losses in tax revenues...
...The endless, specious arguments between pro- and anti-abortionists serve, merely to solidify these positions, while obscuring the one approach on which the majority could agree—cooperative efforts to reduce the need for aibortions...
...Other features include grant provisions—a minimum of $250—to students not now eligible for a government scholarship...
...COLLINS KILBURN Director of Social Ministries North Carolina Council of Churches 159...
...The familiar need-oriented aid programs will continue to be funded...
...The Carter plan is to work within current aid principles, and to open up scholarship eligibilities to students from families earning up to $25,000 a year and subsidized loans to those from up to $40,000-a-year families...
...marilyn kramer ______Death on Demand_______ Raleigh, N.C...
...Not only has he done very little searching in this direction, but also his Middle Income College Assistance Act is widely believed to be calculated to head off programs that will advantage those families...
...Families with children in college would be eligible...
...The strength of the tax-credit idea is in its appeal to legislators, not bishops...
...Recently, a nationally syndicated writer in the Catholic press chastized the bishops for not rallying the troops on behalf of the Packwood-Moynihan tax-credit plan...
...A recent study of the American Council on Education thus showed only 12 percent of the $7 billion in federal grants and loans going to students from families with incomes of more than $15,000, hardly an affluent income level any more...
...Thus, in our outrage at violence, we collaborate with it and encourage it...
...Cooperative efforts on hunger and poverty are encouraging, but certainly Christianity is failing to meet this challenge in the abortion issue...
...As many as 3.1 million students stand to be benefited, and needy students would not be penalized or deprived...
...In the face of incidents like this, it is hard to see how proponents of the death penalty can continue to believe that it is effective as a deterrent...
...Fifty senators have signed on as co-sponsors of the Packwood-Moynihan bill, a number which would seem to guarantee the viability of the proposal in the upper house...
...Father Greeley should have asked whether Christian theology and liturgy will be able to make Christians aware of the awesome mystery and paradox of this gift and give us the sense of direction, purpose, and humility to discern and follow goodness without creating a crutch, a fantasy, escapism, that allows us to avoid responsibility for good and evil...
...There is also strong sentiment reported in the lower house in favor of the Packwood-Moynihan concept...
...Also, if family assets are to be calculated into qualification provisions, any number of deserving middle-class families could find themselves placed beyond the advantages of the new program by real-estate appreciation in today's economy...
...At the saml time there is the matter of constitutionality...
...We do not know how many murders are motivated by a desire to destroy themselves, but there have been studies which document increases in homicide rates before and after highly publicized executions...
...I expect that this kind of desperation and frustration lies at the base of much popular and legislative support of executions...
...But, we cannot discharge this responsibility without the knowledge of good and evil, and the traditionalists' claim to this knowledge is being seriously challenged by those who clearly see the evil in the unloving consequences of what the traditionalists call good...
...Admittedly all will not be clear sailing for their bill...
Vol. 105 • March 1978 • No. 5
