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ICYMI: Sen. Cruz Secures Historic School Choice Wins in the One Big Beautiful Bill

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Last week, National Review spotlighted Senator Cruz’s leadership in securing two landmark school choice provisions in the One Big, Beautiful Bill, which together make the bill the most significant federal school choice legislation ever signed into law. One measure expands previous language drafted and written into law by Sen. Cruz in 2017, and dramatically expands the ability of parents to use 529 accounts for their children’s education. The other measure allows eligible taxpayers to receive a federal tax credit for contributions up to $1,700 per year to scholarship-granting nonprofits.

Nat'l Review

 

From National Review: Inside Ted Cruz’s Reconciliation Fight for School-Choice Tax Credits

In the lead-up to the July 4 holiday, Ted Cruz found himself in a rare position for a sitting U.S. senator: Arguing his case directly to the Senate parliamentarian. A school-choice provision Cruz proposed was on the verge of being cut from this year’s reconciliation package.

Up until that point the Texas senator had been a reliable “yes” vote on reconciliation. But he made clear to Senate Majority Leader John Thune that if the Educational Choice for Children Act (ECCA) was removed from the package, he would “burn the whole bill down.”

After a mad dash of rewrites, Cruz and his legislative team secured the passage of the national school-choice provision — a legislative victory he described to National Review in a wide-ranging interview as one of the most consequential, legacy-defining additions to Congress’s One Big Beautiful Bill.

The ECCA will allow eligible taxpayers to receive a federal tax credit for contributions up to $1,700 per year to scholarship-granting nonprofits. Following parliamentarian pushback on the original legislative language that applied the tax credit to all fifty states, the final version of the bill lifts the cap on tax credits but allows states to opt out of the scholarship program.

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But Cruz’s team worked into the bill an important distinction: states can opt out of receiving scholarships from the nonprofits, but they can’t opt out of the tax credit, which Republicans made a permanent part of the tax code in this year’s reconciliation legislation.

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Until this year’s bill, Cruz’s biggest school-choice legislative achievement was the amendment he authored and passed through Congress’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. The amendment allowed parents to pay for K–12 education expenses up to $10,000 per year by expanding Section 529 college-savings plans, and was at the time the most “far-reaching” piece of federal legislation on school choice, Cruz said.

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Once the bill hit the Senate, Cruz had two goals for the school-choice provision: Keep it in the package, and make it more consequential.

Read more here.

BACKGROUND

Sen. Cruz is the leading voice in the Senate on school choice and for parental rights in education.

  • Sen. Cruz introduced the Student Empowerment Act to enhance 529 College Savings Plans to help public, private, religious, and homeschool students and families and the Universal School Choice Act to allow for up to $10 billion annually in dollar-for-dollar federal tax credits for individuals and businesses that contribute to nonprofit scholarship granting organizations supporting students’ educational opportunities.
  • Sen. Cruz authored and passed into law the Student Opportunity Amendment as part of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. This amendment expanded 529 College Savings Plans to include K-12 elementary and secondary school tuition for public, private, and religious schools. It was at the time the most far-reaching federal school choice legislation ever passed.
  • Sen. Cruz filed the Education Freedom Scholarships and Opportunity Act in 2019, 2021 and 2023. The bill creates a federal tax credit for taxpayers who donate to scholarship organizations supporting post-secondary workforce education, including trade schools and apprenticeship programs, and K-12 education.
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