Pa. House Freedom Caucus compares themselves and the school choice movement to … Nazis?

The heated debate over whether Pennsylvania should invest tax dollars to send students from the state’s lowest-performing schools to private schools in next year’s budget has taken a bizarre turn.

A group representing the most conservative members of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives compared school voucher supporters to Nazis from the film Saving Private Ryan in a widely shared meme.

The Pennsylvania Freedom Caucus posted a now-deleted meme Sunday on Twitter that labels House Democrats as Tom Hanks, who in Saving Private Ryan is the brave American willing to stand up for his fellow soldiers when he is outnumbered and out-resourced. The image also labels school-voucher advocates as a Nazi Germany tanker in another still from the World War II movie.

Senate Republicans approved a $103 million private school voucher program on Friday as part of a $45.5 billion budget put together with Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro. House Democrats, who control their chamber with a one-seat majority, have promised to reject the proposal if it includes the controversial program, which they say will take money and students away from public schools.

Rep. David Rowe (R., Juniata), the vice chair of the Pennsylvania Freedom Caucus, said in an email that the tweet intended to show that school-voucher supporters — made up of House Republicans, Senate Republicans, and Shapiro — are “significantly more powerful that the House Democrats, who stand alone in opposition to educational access for thousands of Pennsylvania children.”

“Any inference beyond that is a sad attempt at sensationalism to distract from the fact that the House Democrat caucus torpedoed Gov. Shapiro’s budget as a favor to their taxpayer-funded government union bosses,” Rowe added.

In the movie, Hanks shoots the Nazi tanker and blows it up — despite the odds being stacked against him. In other words, the Nazis — in this case, school-voucher advocates — are defeated.

The meme rankled one of the few Democratic supporters: Shapiro, who is Pennsylvania’s third Jewish governor.

Shapiro’s press secretary said invoking Nazis “to try and make a political point is abhorrent and repulsive.”

“But if you’re stupid enough to do it anyway, keep Gov. Shapiro’s name out of it,” Shapiro’s press secretary Manuel Bonder said in a statement.

The Freedom Caucus deleted the tweet Monday afternoon and posted a new meme — this time with a still of Johnny Depp from a Pirates of the Caribbean movie — to try clarify their point. The fleeing Jack Sparrow is labeled “House Dems,” with his pursuers labeled as Shapiro, parents, students, and Senate.

Pennsylvania started the 2023-24 fiscal year on Saturday without an approved budget. Lawmakers continue to negotiate a final budget deal. As of Monday, leaders were caught on their main sticking point: school vouchers.