When public policies reveal a double standard, it is rarely subtle. In Arizona today, two state decisions operating side by side present a stark moral and financial paradox: we have made it effortless for high-income families to access state subsidies for private education, while simultaneously constructing bureaucratic maze after maze that deprives low-income families of basic food assistance.

Consider the reality of Arizona’s Universal Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) program. Expanded in 2022 to eliminate all income caps and public school prerequisites, the universal voucher program functions as an open-ended entitlement. Today, the program drains over $870 million annually from public resources, with net new costs to the state General Fund approaching $400 million per year.

Crucially, independent fiscal analyses confirm that over 70% to 80% of universal voucher applicants were students already enrolled in private schools or home-schooling before applying. There is no means testing. 

A household earning $500,000 receives the exact same state payout per child as a working-class family. It is a direct transfer of public tax dollars to reimburse wealthy and middle-class households for expenses they were already paying out of pocket. In the name of “parental choice” and “market freedom,” state funds flow virtually unconditionally.

Now, turn the page to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

Unlike ESAs, SNAP is subjected to aggressive financial means testing, stringent verification rules, and heavy administrative hurdles. Amid state budget shortfalls — fueled in part by unbudgeted voucher spending — the Department of Economic Security saw significant workforce reductions, including the loss of roughly 40% of its frontline eligibility specialists. To avoid potential federal error penalties, the state tightened paperwork demands and audit rules just as staffing collapsed.

The resulting administrative friction created massive backlogs. Roughly 440,000 Arizonans — nearly half the state’s caseload — dropped off food aid in recent months. The vast majority did not suddenly become wealthy; they were trapped in call-center queues, missing paperwork notices, or bogged down by red tape.

This is redistribution in reverse: welfare for the comfortable, austerity for the vulnerable.

Many lawmakers who champion this divide frame their public service around traditional Christian values, including principles deeply held within the Latter-day Saint community and other faith traditions. We are frequently reminded of moral duties to love our neighbors, care for the poor, and act as wise stewards of public resources.

Yet, how is “loving your neighbor” reflected in a policy framework that hands an un-means-tested subsidy to a family that can easily afford private high school tuition, while allowing administrative barriers to strip meals from impoverished children?

Proponents often argue that state food aid must be tightly restricted to prevent dependency and enforce self-reliance, while educational subsidies represent fundamental rights. But this logic falls apart under basic scrutiny. If government assistance inherently breeds “dependency,” why does that risk disappear when the recipient is a high-earner collecting an ESA check? Why is state support for affluent private education branded as “freedom,” while basic nutritional support for struggling families is treated with suspicion?

Budget choices are moral choices. They reveal our true priorities far more clearly than campaign speeches or legislative proclamations. When state government finds hundreds of millions of dollars to subsidize private tuition for families who do not need the help, but allows bureaucratic red tape to take food off the tables of those who do, it isn’t just bad fiscal policy—it is a failure of basic civic ethics.

Arizona can do better. Restoring fiscal sanity to the universal voucher program through common-sense means testing and clearing the administrative logjam starving our state’s most vulnerable citizens is not a radical idea. They are the bare minimum required to align our public policy with the moral values we profess.

Gary Hardy is the co-founder and executive director of Collaborative Justice Institute.