Congress is currently considering another bill in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. We have another article on why these bills would have been much less necessary if the ComingTogether Plan was in place. However, given that nothing like it is currently available, there is one aspect of the Plan that could be put in place fairly quickly if Congress would put it in the next bill. That is the Education Benefit.
Many have spoken of the need to help state and local governments due to increased expenses and lower tax revenue. One of the major costs paid by state and local government is education. If the education benefit were implemented now, that benefit would direct significant funding to schools, reducing the expenses borne by those governments.
To get this benefit up and running quickly, the process of paying the benefit would be modified from the original ComingTogether Plan. Basically, each accredited school or home school curriculum provider would send to the government a list, via Internet, of the citizens enrolled in their schools, say on the 1st of each month for September through December and February through May. The list would include the Social Security number, name, birthdate, and grade level for each student. There would be two simple (for computers) checks on this data: 1) The name, birthdate, and Social Security number must match the records of the Social Security Administration, and 2) the data would be checked for duplicates. Any person listed on more than one school’s report would be disqualified for both schools, and any duplicate grade level and month for a particular student would not be paid. After eliminating any disqualified students, a payment would be made to each school in the amount of the monthly benefit multiplied by the number of qualified students enrolled on the first day of the month. That should be able to be done by the end of the month.
This system is simple enough that if this bill were passed in the next few days, benefits could be being paid by November. Note that due to unnecessary complications, most of the benefits in earlier relief bills have not yet been paid. We wish to avoid that. Keep it simple, and keep it fair by treating every citizen the same way.
We would hope that with this benefit up and running, Congress would in 2021 implement the tax reform specified in the ComingTogether Plan to cover the cost of this benefit starting in 2022.
We are proposing a monthly benefit of $500 per month per qualified student. News media has reported estimates ranging from $400 to $2,300 per student of additional costs per student due to COVID-19, so $4,000 per year should more than cover those special expenses and still provide additional revenue to schools to mitigate the lower tax revenues being received by state and local governments.