In the interest of fairness, I'll give a little credit where due to Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) for his blunt and hopefully honest answer to host Bob Schieffer when pressed about thoughts of incorporating some sort of larger tax deduction/write off for college tuition costs.
Schieffer was asking the question in the context of tax reform, and in that context Rangel's answer makes great sense -- basically (paraphrasing) he stated that giving any deduction would do nothing but complicate the tax code at a time when it should be simplified.
A great answer and one that does make perfect sense. The more deductions the Congress tries to include, no matter how noble the thought that went into the provisions of same, the more complicated the tax code gets and the less likely (overall) that the people you really intended to help, or the social policy you intended to institute will do as it was supposed to.
For example, if you offer a 100% deduction of yearly college tuition costs up to a maximum of $3,000.00 who is really gonna benefit? While it's true that someone attending a community college or a less expensive school (technical school, college, or even universities) will get a great boost in their education, the benefits may wind up going more towards wealthier families that spend much more than $3k per year on college costs.
Is there anything wrong with encouraging education in that way? Not really, but... there are always unintended consequences. Giving that $3k benefit may wind up driving tuition costs up so that they $3k that was given is just a down payment on an education, rather than covering most of the costs as it does now. After all, the government gave you the $3k, asking for $3.5k, or $5k or any more than that shouldn't be too big a burden, should it?
Circling back, if the government did give a $3k per year deduction for college expenses, and the benefit went to all families, then you are just handing money back to the wealthy families that you took the money from to begin with, leaving a $3k hole in the revenue you would have collected from them. Where do you get that money back from? Take a little more from each and every citizen, or perhaps tax away more wealth from the "rich"? Wait, I know -- you can just put in a rule that says that the $3k benefit is only good for people that earn less than $120,000.00 per year. That would make sure that the benefit only went to the truly needy.
Only one problem with that thought -- what should have been a simple piece of tax code just became very complicated, didn't it?
In anycase, again, I give credit to Rep. Rangel for not letting himself get caught up in the pandering trap, nor for stumpling on the idea that education should be more important than a simpler tax system.
