Thread by @ArkTimes

For a private school family making roughly $300K annually, a LEARNS voucher will effectively cancel out their state income tax bill, @ArkDavey writes.

LEARNS can be thought of as a giant tax cut for these well-off Arkansans — or, simply, a welfare check.

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We're talking here about families who are already sending their kids to private school but will soon be eligible for vouchers

Consider a made-up Little Rock family, "the Joneses," with two kids, a house in the Heights and an income of $300K ...

arktimes.com/arkansas-blog/…

Both kids go to Episcopal, where tuition is $15,010 for their daughter (elementary school) and $17,900 for their son (6th grade).

Those are fixed costs in their budget. Every year, they spend $32,910 on tuition, not to mention other school expenses...

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Life is good for the Joneses, though like all families they could always use more $$$: For a kitchen remodeling project, for a new car, for whatever.

Fortunately, Gov. @SarahHuckabee's LEARNS voucher program is about to gift them nearly $14K per year.

arktimes.com/arkansas-blog/…

@SarahHuckabee After all, they were going to spend that money on tuition anyway, and cash is fungible. So the ~$14K they'll get in vouchers — paid for by Arkansas taxpayers — amounts to the same thing as a tax cut.

Or a welfare check.

arktimes.com/arkansas-blog/…

@SarahHuckabee This is their reward for being wealthy enough to already send their kids to one of the state’s fanciest private school: For the Joneses, it will be as if their state income tax liability was zeroed out to nothing.

arktimes.com/arkansas-blog/…