Common Issues for Voucher Programs

Abstract

Debates over different types of vouchers often proceed in isolation, with an ideological fever. Considered as a tool of public policy, however, a voucher is ideologically neutral?helpful for some purposes, less appropriate for others. Vouchers are applied to a wide range of services and goods: food, higher education, primary and secondary school education, housing, employment and training, child care, and medical insurance for the elderly and nonelderly are among the best-known. But vouchers are also made available for items such as low-flush toilets, taxi rides for the intoxicated, food for panhandlers, neutering of pets, and much else.