Timothy Cardinal Dolan will be chagrined to learn that he is aiding and abetting a “tax-avoidance scam” designed to help wealthy people turn charitable contributions into huge profits.
So says Manhattan state Sen. Liz Krueger, who let loose with a burst of astonishing paranoia about the proposed education tax credits that his eminence is backing in Albany.
The plan — which has broad, bipartisan support — calls for the state to offer up to $300 million a year in tax credits to people who donate to primary and secondary education, with half the contributions earmarked for public schools, and half aimed at private-school scholarships.
After this page endorsed the bill as “a promising and creative way to boost charitable giving for a critically important cause,” Krueger said that we had been “hoodwinked” and were “hardly the first to be bamboozled.”
Which presumably also covered Dolan, unless Krueger meant to say that the cardinal was actually one of the hoodwinkers or bamboozlers.
Steeped in animosity toward private money that challenges the public school monopoly and gives families choices, she seized on a legislative glitch: A drafting error in one version of the plan indicated some donors could come out ahead after claiming both a federal deduction and a state credit for the same contribution.
So — aha! — Krueger denounced the plan as both a get-rich-quick scheme by the wealthy and as a cushy source of funding for their big private-school tuition bills.
Dolan would no doubt happily explain to the conclusion-jumping senator that the intended beneficiaries are parochial schools, yeshivas and other private institutions that struggle to make ends meet while educating the children of poor and middle-class families. After all, the cardinal is a charitable and forgiving man .
