Albany charter cash cow: Big banks making a bundle on new construction as schools bear the cost

[Starry Messenger]

http://articles.nydailynews.com/2010-05-07/local/29438011_1_charter-law-albany-charter-state-aid

Wealthy investors and major banks have been making windfall profits by using a little-known federal tax break to finance new charter-school construction.

The program, the New Markets Tax Credit, is so lucrative that a lender who uses it can almost double his money in seven years.

<snip>

Under the New Markets program, a bank or private equity firm that lends money to a nonprofit to build a charter school can receive a 39% federal tax credit over seven years.

<snip>

By combining the various credits with the interest from the loan itself, a lender can almost double his investment over the seven-year period.

No wonder JPMorgan Chase announced this week it was creating a new $325 million pool to invest in charter schools and take advantage of the New Markets Tax Credit.

So glad all that bailout money is going to a good cause. While winkling away houses of their parents, banks will be getting into the school real estate biz, you know, for kids. If you can demonize teachers and bring in TFA as short-timers to erase organized pressure against these tactics, why, you've got yourself quite the little scheme going there.

[MichiganVote]

1. God, we're being eaten from within and we premit them to eat our young

[spedtr90]

2. New Market Tax Credit program started in 2000

So this has been throwing money at wealthy investors and banks long before bailouts or stimulus funds.

http://cdfifund.gov/what_we_do/programs_id.asp?programID=5

[Starry Messenger]

3. There was a bit of hyperbole there. :)

I wonder though, in light of the high finance shenanigans that led to Bankmageddon 2008, if a tighter rein shouldn't be put on this program? It seems wrong that education should provide an avenue for the next "bubble" for a group of parasites that haven't seemed to have learned their lesson.

[spedtr90]

4. Agreed

[Smarmie Doofus]

5. Kick and Rec. nt