Speaker Silver Speaks

Shelly Silver has said some truly inflammatory comments in this week's Jewish Week regarding both Yeshivas and the Education Tax Credit lobby. A taste:

But Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver insisted on Tuesday he is not considering any plan other than the $330-per-child credit announced in last week’s budget agreement. That credit, which would cost the state $600 million, would apply to all children between the ages of 4 and 17, and is not linked to education spending.

If such a stipend were to be granted, Silver said, it would be “almost like parents being used as a vehicle to get around the Constitution and provide the money to [private] schools.”

...The speaker has increasingly voiced suspicion that private schools would hijack an education tax credit by raising tuition, and on Tuesday he blasted TeachNYS, the tax-credit lobbying group founded by Catholic and Jewish leaders, as a front for such schools.

“Clearly the [private] schools are so invested in the governor’s tuition tax proposal that it was ‘their money’ directed to them in the schools, that’s how they looked at it,” said Silver in an interview. “In various communities, school organizations spent a significant amount of money lobbying. Check TeachNYS and see who their who contributors are. … Many of the schools they represent have parents who make over the income limit. That means if they raise the tuition they raise it so people aren’t getting any benefit under either bill.”

So basically, Silver is accusing Yeshivas of using parents as a front to get around the Constitution and grab government funds all for themselves. Wow. Those are pretty much fighting words. Silver, an experienced trial lawyer, should know that both the US Supreme Court and his pal NY Attorney General Eliott Spitzer disagree with his assessment of tax credits as unconstitutional. Not to mention that Silver's comments don't even hold much water. He is concerned that Yeshivas have their eye on the tax credits that parents will be receiving - yet that is just as much a possibilty with the tax credit he himself is offering. If Yeshivas are as evil and money-grubbing as he is suggesting, why put ANY money in the hands of parents? Also, he is so proud of the fact that he is putting the credit into the hands of all parents, as opposed to the Education Tax Credits which help only parents in failing school districts. It doesn't take a brain surgeon to figure out that if Yeshivas are going to raise tuition to reflect a tax credit, they are more likely to do so if every one of their parents are receiving an across-the-board credit - as they would with his proposal. He is contradicting himself within the very same statement.

And his implication that the Yeshivas are in cahoots with Teach NYS only to get their hands on the tax credits is just nasty. What does Shelly have to say then about his own allegiance with the Teacher's Union? In addition, I have personally heard a Yeshiva principal discussing the tax credit proposal, and all he talked about was the fact that this credit would help many of his parents put food on the table. For Shelly to allege that Yeshivas simply want to rob all parents blind is really beyond the pale.