Close Big Corporate Loopholes, Fund Education

Originally published on Care2′s Causes.

Politicians love to argue about taxes. Raise them, lower them, close a loophole here, or one over there. The National Education Association decided to jump into the fray by calling for the closure of all corporate tax loopholes in order to fund public education. With many corporations making record profits the NEA believes they should be fairly taxed and the money directed at funding the nation’s education.

NEA believes that by closing the seven largest loopholes would provide roughly $1.487 trillion over the next ten years. They also want action on a more local level:

At the state level, support legislation that keeps corporations from shifting profits to low-tax burden states and require full disclosure of state and local incentives to corporations to ensure they pay their fair share to the states and communities where they do business.

This is a bold demand considering the influence corporations have on state legislatures. For example, Illinois passed tax breaks for Sears and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange after both companies threaten to relocate. NEA’s proposal would stop it.

The move by Sears cost the local schools millions of dollars while Illinois and other states do a poor job of testing their effectiveness!

The report released Thursday by the Pew Center on the States found that no state regularly takes a hard look at the effectiveness of all of its tax breaks. Twenty-five states and Washington, D.C., do little if any evaluation, including Illinois, which is among the states facing major budget struggles.

Some terrific oversight! NEA notes the money could do wonders for children’s education. These programs actually do work and provide a return on the investment. Quality education at a young age means a more advanced generation that can prepare and even create the next economies.

With just a portion of the $1.487 trillion dollars garnered by closing the seven biggest loopholes every impoverished child under five could attend a high-quality pre-school, the maximum Pell Grant award could be boosted to help low-income students pay for college, every school in America could receive, on average, half a million dollars to support students from low-income families and the government could finally meet its obligation to provide 40% of the financing for students with disabilities.

This just makes sense. Check out NEA’s video to promote their case.