Proposition 212 sets one income cap regardless of how many children a family is raising. That is not how Democrats write benefit rules — and it is not an accident.
There is a number in Proposition 212 that sounds reasonable until you notice what it ignores: $150,000, regardless of how many children live in the house.
“The family income limit would apply regardless of the number of children in a family”
Read that again. It is not a drafting error. The measure says it out loud.
The trapdoor
Every income-tested program Democrats have defended — SNAP, ACA premium credits, Head Start, free and reduced lunch — scales with household size. Prop 212 does not. A family of three at $150,000 is at about 549 percent of the federal poverty line. A family of eight at the same income is at about 269 percent.
So the bigger your family, the poorer you have to be before Arizona will help with your child's education. That is the opposite of how we build every other benefit.
- One child: a $2,000 raise can cost about $7,700 in ESA awards.
- Two children: about $15,400.
- Three children: about $23,100.
A cliff, not a phase-out
Ohio's EdChoice Expansion means-tests the award, not eligibility. Families above 450 percent of poverty get a prorated amount, with a floor of 10 percent of the maximum. North Carolina's Opportunity Scholarship uses four tiers scaled by household size with no eligibility cutoff. Those states phase down. Prop 212 detonates.
One dollar over the line and every child's award vanishes. A parent who picks up overtime, takes a promotion, or has a spouse go back to work can end up thousands of dollars worse off. Economists across the political spectrum have spent decades trying to get cliffs like this out of the welfare system. This measure adds a new one.
And it closes every year
The $150,000 line rises by 2 percent a year, or the GDP price deflator, whichever is lower. Arizona incomes have been growing at roughly 4 percent. A ceiling that rises slower than wages does not stay where it is. It closes. The Common Sense Institute projects that by 2045 more than half of Arizona families with school-age children would be shut out — without another vote.
The cliff is the trapdoor. Vote NO on the Fascist Education Act.