The announcement by President Ronald Reagan that he was submitting to Congress a tuition tax credit bill to aid parents in private schools has sparked an intensive drive by the “Campaign to Relieve Independent Education” of Agudath Israel of American to win passage of the measure in this session of Congress.
According to Prof. Laurence Katz, chairman of the special nationwide network spearheading the effort for Orthox Jews, Agudath Israel believes tax credits has its best chance since the organization began the effort more than a decade ago.
The President, speaking to a convention of Catholic educators last week announced that he would submit legislation whicn would allow a family with on adjusted gross annual income of $50,000 or less to take a maximum tax credit of $500 for each child.
In anticipation of the announcement, Rabbi Menachem Lubinsky, director of Government and Public Affairs of Agudath Israel of America, personally thanked the President for his initiative at a White House lunchean for religious leaders last Tuesday. Lubinsky also met with White House officials to plan strategy for the legislative offensive to pass tuition tax credits.
Katz said that the committee, which Agudath Israel had organized in 1980, would begin working immediately to win approval in the Congress. He said that although “we recognize that it will be an uphill battle, the President’s support will hopefully spell the difference.”
‘A CONCEPT WHOSE TIME HAS COME’
The news of the Presidents actions were warmly greeted by Rabbi Moshe Sherer, president of Agudath Israel of America. He said: “Tuition tax credits is a concept whose time has come. Those who have feared nonpublic education are beginning to recognize the enormous contribution that this sector has made to American society.”
Sherer expressed the hope that those secular Jewish leaders who have consistently opposed tuition tax credits “would do some soul-searching in a pragmatic evaluation of the justice of the issue, and at long last put down their weapons in order not to harm the benefits which would accrue to Jewish education.”
Agudath Israel leaders testified at hearings of the Senate Finance Committee last June at which it called “freedom of choice in education a cardinal principle which deserves the support of all Americans.” They also said that the opposition of some Jewish leaders should not be confused with the feelings of grassroots Jews who support the rights of parents to provide their children with a Jewish education. Agudath Israel said it would join with leaders of other faiths in an all-out effort to help the President win approval in the Congress.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
