When the rhetoric of tax credits and vouchers to aid nonpublic schools is laid open, two principal theories in their support are revealed. One theory is grounded on "need" and the other is anchored in "competition." The first stimulates charitable feelings and "fair play" instincts while the second appeals to the economic traditions in which Americans are steeped. To the extent that these theories are couched in the constitutional vernacular, they take on a hazy aura of legal justification. However, this aura becomes even more hazy when a differentiation is made between secular private schools and religious private schools as recipients of the direct or indirect aid from the State. It is in the area of church-state separation of religion that the voucher plan and tax credits flounder at law. Unless the Supreme Court backs down from its apparent present posture, government aid to parochial education will continue to be recognized as such, regardless of the ingenuity used in dressing it up as something else. (Author/JF)