The U.S. Senate Finance Committee has released its version of HR 1 (referred to as the “One Big Beautiful bill”), which would unravel all of the hard work we’ve done to keep vouchers out of Mississippi. One of the few changes made by the Senate committee to the voucher section of the bill actually made it worse, not better, by funding vouchers permanently (the House version funded vouchers through 2029). You can read a more complete summary of the HR 1 voucher provision on our website.
This bill is moving quickly. Senate leaders have a goal of passing it by the July 4 recess, so it is urgent that we get hundreds of phone calls to Senators Roger Wicker and Cindy Hyde-Smith right away, urging them to have the federal tax-credit voucher provision removed from the bill. We need your help to make that happen.
Please ask our U.S. Senators to oppose the federal tax-credit vouchers (Qualified Elementary and Secondary Education Scholarships) in HR 1:
Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith
Mississippi Offices
Brookhaven (limited hours): 601.748.8024 Gulfport: 228.867.9710 Jackson: 601.965.4459 Oxford: 662.236.1018
Washington Office
U.S. Capitol: 202.224.5054
Senator Roger Wicker
Mississippi Offices
Gulfport: 228.871.7017 Hernando: 662.429.1002 Jackson: 601.965.4644 Tupelo: 662.844.5010
Washington Office
U.S. Capitol: 202.224.6253
Find additional contact information for your members of Congress
Here are three important points for Senator Hyde-Smith and Senator Wicker to consider:
1. For more than a decade, Mississippians have partnered with our State Legislature to keep vouchers out of Mississippi; we do not want vouchers forced on us by the federal government.
2. HR 1’s costly voucher program would take Mississippi backward, putting at risk the impressive gains our public school students and teachers have made in recent years.
3. The federal tax-credit vouchers in HR 1 would add billions of dollars to the federal deficit annually, for a program that Mississippians do not want.
Another way you can help is to share the opinion column authored by Nancy Loome explaining how the voucher portion of this federal legislation would be detrimental to our state.
Little attention has been paid to the voucher piece of this broad budget bill, which would do irreparable harm to our public schools and put at serious risk our students’ historic achievement gains, while increasing the federal deficit by billions of dollars annually. Please help our senators understand the importance of removing the voucher provision.
Mississippians aren’t the only ones who oppose vouchers. Voters across our country have made clear their opposition to vouchers, which have proven to be “welfare for the wealthy,” with private school tuition subsidies going primarily to more affluent families whose children already were attending private schools. Each and every time that vouchers have been on a statewide ballot, they have lost. See the 13 times that voters have rejected vouchers.
Please call right away. If you have called already, please call again. Ask other public school supporters to call, too. Our children are counting on us, and together, we’ve got this!
