Not paying to much attention to the latest attempt at increasing our national debt, I pretty much ignored articles on the Senate tax bill that passed last week.
However, in today's Montana Standard (Butte) there's a story entitled,
"College tuition tax deduction appears to be in jeopardy"by Jennifer McKee.
The story starts:
HELENA — More than 11,000 middle-income Montanans have used a special college tuition tax deduction that was eliminated from a recently passed $69 billion investment tax cut bill now on its way to becoming law.
The deduction allowed students or their families to deduct up to $4,000 annually of the price of college tuition and certain college fees from their taxable income.
How come I haven't seen this mentioned anywhere else? If true, the D's need to get on it and start yelling and screaming. Not only are the evil R's decreasing our ability to pay down the debt that they created, they are gutting the possibility that future generations will be able to pay down that debt.
As someone who long ago relied on this deduction to get through college without bankrupting my parents (who sent 5 kids to college over a period of 12 years, 2 to private schools, 2 to state schools, one to a military academy) I have to say that this represents a direct and egregious assault on the American Dream.
Now before I get all exercised about this, has anyone else picked up this story and confirmed it? If so, is there a concerted response planned? I can't think of a better issue to ignite college campuses as the weather gets perfect for demonstrating (remembering the good old days in the 70s when warm weather meant closing down Washington),