One of the first rules of partisan politics is to promote issues that unify your own coalition while dividing the other party’s. That’s why the Medicaid cuts in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act are a gift to Democrats. Over the past fifteen years, forty states opted for Medicaid expansion, including twenty that Trump won in 2024; lots of Republican governors proved unwilling to turn down an offer that had Uncle Sam paying 90 percent of the costs. Congressional Republicans have reversed much of ObamaCare’s Medicaid expansion and thereby handed Democrats an election issue.
With much less notice, the act created a school-choice program that poses a headache for elected Democrats. It provides a dollar-for-dollar tax credit for individual taxpayers who donate up to $1,700 annually to “scholarship granting organizations,” which give money to students to cover private-school tuition and other education expenses.
Republicans sought to make the provision mandatory nationwide but the Senate parliamentarian ruled that such a dictate would violate the Byrd rule, so it was stripped out. Now states have to opt in. That could be fortuitous for Republicans, because the issue sharply divides Democratic voters. Teachers unions and white progressives overwhelmingly oppose any public support for private schools. But school choice is popular within the Black and Hispanic communities, especially among parents.
It’s a tough dilemma. Will Democratic leaders opt their states into the new federal school choice program, allowing families to accept scholarships that are funded by charitable donations from taxpayers nationwide—scholarships that don’t cost their state a penny, and therefore can’t be said to be taking any money from their public schools?
Or will they bow to the demands of the teachers unions and bar the schoolhouse door instead, creating a grand opportunity for GOP candidates running against them?
There’s no excuse for blue states that want to get to a “yes,” especially since jurisdictions can set their own requirements for scholarship-granting organizations. They can target their state’s program on poor and working-class families. They can also add requirements that participating students take standardized tests, allowing comparisons with traditional public schools.
Pennsylvania’s Gov. Josh Shapiro has indicated limited support for school choice, while Illinois’s JB Pritzker and Kentucky’s Andy Beshear have been dead set against it. What about California’s Gavin Newsom and Maryland’s Wes Moore? As with Republicans and Medicaid expansion, it will be fascinating to watch Democratic governors—potential presidential candidates—grapple with this conundrum.
If past is prologue, congressional Democrats will work to extinguish the federal school choice provision once they are back in power, just as congressional Republicans have clawed back much of Medicaid expansion. Political scientists used to think that social assistance—such as healthcare and school scholarships—would be impossible to repeal once real live Americans had become beneficiaries. But as in so many other areas these days, the old laws of politics no longer seem to apply.
Editor’s note: This article first appeared in the Wall Street Journal, which also published letters to the editor in response from Michael McShane and Jeff Yass.
