A Letter to President Trump From Our First Responders

November 8, 2017

Mr. President:

As representatives of the undersigned organizations and members of the #EdTaxCredit50 Coalition, we strongly encourage you to demand Congress include a National Education Scholarship Tax Credit in the tax reform plan currently being debated.

Many of our members and leaders have known you for years in New York as a true friend of the first responder community. We also know you support expanding school choice and empowering parents to have more control over their child’s education. Please support our cops and fire fighters now as you promote the passage of long-awaited tax reform for our nation.

We hope to meet with you and your staff at your earliest convenience to discuss the impact of this proposal on America’s first responder community.

Presently, eighteen states have scholarship tax credit programs that help hundreds of thousands of children and their families afford the same opportunity to attend private and parochial schools as those who earn higher incomes.

As you know, the tax credit is not a new government program. It’s not a taxpayer hand-out. It doesn’t increase government interference with education. It does the exact opposite by incentivizing private, charitable donations to non-profit organizations that help families afford educational choice.

In so many places across our country, first responders need financial assistance to afford to send their children to private and parochial schools. At a challenging time when our law enforcement and larger first responder community is dealing an historic number of damaging hurricanes, battling deadly wildfires, fighting a national opioid crisis, protecting communities from gun violence and just recently handled the largest mass shooting in our nation’s history, we hope you will help support a better future for the children of our heroes.

The National Education Scholarship Tax Credit would also assist charitable organizations who provide aid to the widows/widowers and the children of those who have made the ultimate sacrifice in the service of our communities.

Additionally, a National Education Tax Credit will help millions of lower and middle income families whose children are currently trapped in failing schools. The opportunity to attend a better school can also mean a brighter future for kids who might otherwise start down a path that ends in a police car.

Again, we thank you for your continued commitment to our nation’s law enforcement and first responder community. Your urging of Congress to include a National Education Scholarship Tax Credit would take your support for all of us to a whole new level.

We and the families we represent look forward to your response to this request.

Respectfully,

NYPD Sergeants Benevolent Association
NYPD Detectives Benevolent Association
NYPD Captains Endowment Association
Philadelphia Fraternal Order of Police Lodge #5
FDNY Uniformed Fire Officers Association, IAFF Local 854
Federal Enforcement Homeland Security Foundation
New York State Court Officers Association
New York State Fraternal Order of Police
New York State Professional Firefighters Association
New York State Supreme Court Officers Association
New York State Troopers PBA
Police Conference of New York (229 Local PBAs)
Silver Shield Foundation

cc: Hon. Paul Ryan, Speaker of the House of Representatives
Hon. Mitch McConnell, Senate Majority Leader
Hon. Orrin Hatch, Chairman, Senate Finance Committee
Hon. Kevin Brady, Chairman, House Ways and Means Committee
Hon. John F. Kelly, Chief of Staff
Hon. Kellyanne Conway, Counselor to the President
Hon. Andrew Bremberg, Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy