December 12, 2000

Ohio Voucher Program Suffers Legal Setback
Another Look At Welfare Reform's Effects
Gun Maker Concedes On Gun Locks

Ohio Voucher Program Suffers Legal Setback

A federal appeals court yesterday declared Cleveland's school voucher program unconstitutional, ruling that government funding of private school tuition crosses the line separating church and state by promoting religious education, according to The Washington Post.

The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati noted that 96 percent of the nearly 4,000 students who receive vouchers attend church-subsidized religious schools -- prompted by affordable prices not available at nonsectarian private schools. Under state law, the voucher limit is $2,500 per child.

With courts in various parts of the country divided on the legality of school vouchers, the controversial issue is unlikely to be settled until the U.S. Supreme Court weighs in.

The school voucher issue is debated in "Vouchers and Educational Freedom: A Debate," by Joseph L. Bast, David Harmer and Douglas Dewey. In "What Would a School Voucher Buy?" Executive Vice President David Boaz and R. Morris Barrett explain that $3,000 a year would go a long way toward buying a quality education.

In "Reclaiming Our Schools: Increasing Parental Control of Education through the Universal Education Credit," Darcy Ann Olsen, director of education and child policy at the Cato Institute, and Matthew J. Brouillette, director of education policy at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, offer education tax credits as an alternative to vouchers that would avoid the church-state problem.

Another Look At Welfare Reform's Effects

Four years after the national overhaul of welfare, economists and welfare researchers are questioning some of the conventional wisdom of its shrinking rolls, including the belief that people who got off the rolls were the ones best prepared to work and that the caseload increases that inspired the overhaul were caused by a rising number of single mothers on relief, according to The New York Times.

In "A Happy Anniversary for Welfare Reform?" Entitlements Policy Analyst Lisa E. Oliphant warns that the picture is not entirely rosy. She writes that "two-thirds of former welfare families continue to turn to government for assistance in meeting their health care, food, child care, transportation and housing needs. That's hardly self-sufficiency."

Oliphant analyzes the accomplishments and shortcomings of reform in the Policy Analysis "Four Years of Welfare Reform: A Progress Report." The Cato Institute hosted the policy forum "Welfare, Work, and Four Years of Change: Where Do We Go from Here?" featuring Charles Murray and Wendell Primus. The event can be watched in streaming video on the Cato Web site.

Gun Maker Concedes On Gun Locks

Smith & Wesson, the nation's largest gun maker, agreed yesterday to set aside 2 percent of nationwide firearms sales to develop safer guns and to make it impossible for the average 5-year-old to pull the trigger of one of its weapons, according to the Associated Press.

The agreement with the city of Boston mirrors one the company reached in March with the Clinton administration and some other states and cities. It promises external gun locks on new production and internal locks within two years.

Some 190 municipalities have sued gun companies in recent years seeking damages for gun violence. Smith & Wesson was dropped from many of those suits after the March agreement.

In "So Sue Them, Sue Them," Michael I. Krauss and Robert A. Levy show that when governments use the judiciary to recover "damages," the courts intrude on the regulatory and revenue responsibilities of legislatures. And when lawsuits based on tenuous legal theories impose high costs on defendants, due process gives way to a form of extortion, with public officials serving as bagmen for private contingency fee lawyers.

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