Getting rich on Charter Schools with the Clintons’ New Markets Tax Credit
Finally, as campaign talk turns to charter schools, it’s necessary to look at the New Markets Tax Credit, originally passed as a compromise between Bill Clinton and then speaker Dennis Hastert. We may remember the 2010 exposé by Juan Gonzales in Democracy Now! which showed how this credit contains a nifty loophole, where rapidly-expanding charter school construction financing became a license to print money for Wall Street investment funds.
In 2013, the New Markets Tax Credit was extended and made permanent, thanks in part to lobbying giant John Podesta of Center for American Progress and his brother at The Podesta Group.
Who is John Podesta? He was Bill Clinton’s chief of staff, Obama’s senior transition team staff and he currently chairs Hillary’s campaign (so we’re sure he’s not coordinating with his former SuperPAC PrioritiesUSA). John Podesta’s lobbying efforts can also help us understand Hillary’s likely course in education.
Aside from promising “a great teacher in every classroom”, Hillary has praised the New Markets Tax Credit. She wants to expand it further it as part of her plan to invest in struggling communities, such as coal communities, former manufacturing communities or regions with downsizing military bases. Charter schools are a major part of this. Here is an investment offered by JPMorgan Chase promising 115% proceeds for a 7-year investment of $5–20 million for financing charter school construction in ‘empowerment zones’.
Want to get in on it? Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg did, investing heavily in charters in Newark, NJ to reap valuable tax advantages along with a number of hedge funders like Daniel Loeb.
Hillary’s support for charter schools and privatization does hurt unions, making it curious that Randi Weingarten would go all in for Hillary without debate by actual AFT teachers. Lily Eskelson-Garcia and the NEA would follow in step, even as they tout Bernie’s anti-testing pilot as the way forward for diverse schools.
Check out Hillary’s own web page, touting the New Markets Tax Credit as a way to help disadvantaged communities as it quietly allows Wall Street to reap profits in tax breaks and privatize education, capturing public dollars just like any other Bain Capitol or Jeb Bush hatched scheme. Specifically, she would double the “Build America Bonds” programs that Arne Duncan has promoted heavily.
In order to justify charters, corporate astroturf paints public schools as “failure factories” and causes the vampiric “bright flight” out of public schools. Hillary doesn’t like to talk about how entwined with charter lobbyists she really is, but suffice it to say CAP is basically a Hillary appendage.
The video below is a short clip of an eye-opening 2012 summit of Bush and Clinton money bundlers, explaining how corporate cash would upend your child’s school, which it did, with considerable cost to taxpayers and lost learning time.
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