This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Thursday, August 28, 2014.

I'm Caleb Brown.

The Supreme Court of New Hampshire today ruled that several people trying to shut down a popular scholarship tax credit school

choice program lack the standing to challenge.

Dick Comer, of the Institute for Justice, argued the case on behalf of families who benefit

from the program. He evaluates the court's decision.

This case is about a tax credit generated scholarship program in the state of New Hampshire where businesses could get 85% tax credits

against donations made to scholarship granting organizations and those scholarship granting organizations could give parents scholarships for three purposes.

The first purpose was if they wanted to transfer to a public school in a

district they didn't live in to which they would have to pay tuition and they could

have gotten a scholarship towards that tuition. The second was for

homeschooling expenses. It was a smaller scholarship but you could get a

scholarship to educate your kids at home.

The third thing was you could get a scholarship to go to any participating private school in New Hampshire, whether religious or secular.

And it's that aspect of the program that the plaintiffs believed caused the whole program to be unconstitutional.

Because parents might choose to send their kids to a religious school.

Correct, because they might send them to religious schools and religious schools in New Hampshire as they do elsewhere in the United States and every other state tend to be the majority of private schools.

Who are the plaintiffs in this case?

The plaintiffs were eight individual taxpayers, none of whom wanted to use the scholarship

program and one business that had no intention of contributing to a

scholarship fund.

All right, and this matters because this case unsatisfyingly to all parties involved.

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