When I was in graduate school, one of my fellow students described the movie Sudden Death to me. Something about terrorists, the vice president, a professional hockey game and Jean-Claude Van Damme. “It was a parody, but no one told Jean-Claude Van Damme,” the summary concluded. Arizona’s ESA opponents have an uncanny way of bringing this summary of a movie I have yet to see to mind.
Last week Arizona Superintendent Tom Horne announced that the Arizona Department of Education would begin to use risk-based accounting in Arizona’s Empowerment Scholarship Account program. Risk-based accounting has long been a standard operating procedure in other government policies that provide purchasing power to recipients. The response from ESA opponents displayed their characteristic combination of careful nuance and measured criticism. I am sorry, I must have been thinking about the ESA opponents from the Bizzaro world! Alas, here in the real world we got the same ol’ same ol’:
ESA opponents have cited misuse of funds as a rationale for eliminating ESAs, but this appears to be a highly selective form of fiscal conservatism. The misuse of funds rate for programs such as Unemployment Insurance, Medicaid, SNAP and much more stands at several times higher than Arizona ESA program. If we want to eliminate government programs with a misuse of funds rate equal to or higher than the Arizona Empowerment Scholarship Program, we are going to need to bring in the President of Argentina and his chain saw to pull it off.
Continuing on the theme of unintentional comedy gold, Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs put out a press release criticial of the Arizona Department of Education’s decision to employ risk-based audits. The Arizona Department responded by noting that Hobbs signed legislation which, quite sensibly by the way, requires the Arizona Department of Education to employ audits for the ESA program:
The best kind of irony — unintended irony.
