I heard about Barack Obama's plan to require community service of its citizens. Is he serious?
Apparently.
This is absurd. Volunteering should be voluntary. I'm all for volunteering but it isn't necessarily the "right" thing to do. And requiring people to "volunteer" without pay seems wrong to me.
A Coal Billionaire is Building the World's Biggest Clean Energy Plant -
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An anonymous reader shared this report from CNN: Five times the size of
Paris. Visible from space. The world's biggest energy plant. Enough
electricity to ...
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3 comments:
I actually like the idea of expanding Americorps. Americorps has been an excellent source of good help (better than many other alternatives) for my mom (She's disabled with MS and depends on help each day for various things from personal stuff on down to shopping and cleaning. Americorps actually gives compensation, too (in college tuition assistance). So the part of this plan that calls for an expansion of Americorps is (I think) a good one.
Integrating service into education, both primary and college education is not a bad thing. Compensation there: the public education system. Kids giving back to the community, partially in working for some of their education (That's how I'd present it to my kids... there's no free lunch). Requiring service into curricula is a good idea, too. I think we can only benefit from it. Too many people grow up without a sense of community. 50 hours a year just isn't that much.
Education systems provide a good, low-cost administration framework for service. Expanding existing Americorps and incorporating service aspects into schools would be cheap.
Where I get a little bristly is the "Social Entrepreneurship Agency for Nonprofits", the "Social Investment Fund Network", and other bureaucratic agencies that Barack wants to create, and I think some of the military content in this document is very politicized.
In general, though, I think this is one of Barack Obama's better ideas. Contrary to your statement, there is compensation in Americorps, and I think the argument can be made that students in governmnet schools are compensated.
I still disagree with the notion of required volunteering though I appreciate your insight on the subject. I volunteered with a church until they hired me. I've volunteered with other organizations too. I don't think this is the thing for the government to do at all. Americorps may do great things (I'm not familiar with them) and giving a sense of community to people may be a nice thing to do, but this sounds like a bureaucratic nightmare. A jobs program even. I would much prefer this be done in the private sector. Our high school required us to volunteer (again, that's not really volunteering, is it?) and it was fine. I survived. I spent about 20-30 hours a year working at the food bank or stuffing envelopes. I also spent my summer volunteering with the United Way and the local hospital. As long as the government isn't ordering us around and creating a massive bureaucracy, I'm okay with any privately managed initiative to promote service.
Required volunteering as it relates to taxpaying adults (i.e. forcing people at gunpoint to serve, sort of like they do for the income tax), I certainly wouldn't condone. But that's not what's being done here.
I think this is a question of how to best educate. I personally believe we could introduce more community service into public colleges and schools as a part of the curriculum, and it would do absolutely no harm, and probably lots of good. Please note, Obama's document doesn't call the school programs "volunteering". Yes - I see the heading at the very top, but I've also read this thing thoroughly.
I'm like you, Mary Ellen, I'll be volunteering (and my family will be volunteering), regardless of what the government says do. I certainly beleive in private volunteering and donating as the most direct source of charity and good in society. But I also beleive that introducing the value of service into education is a worthwhile cause. It's one thing I can definitely go along with if we're going to have a public education system. Seeing as it (unfortunately) looks like the public education system isn't going away any time soon, putting more service in the curriculum sounds like a really good idea.
I guess this is the liberal in me.
I don't see anywhere in Obama's plan that says taxpaying adults must serve. I've voiced my disagreements with this document on large scale government bureaucracy programs to manage non profit funds and services, in addition to the very politically charged analysis of the military. In other words, I don't agree with nearly everything.
But I do agree with service as a part of public education. This part of Obama's plan is not expensive.
In a perfect America, we wouldn't have a public education system, but other than that, I don't see the problem with it.
You can think what you want about Americorps.
Personally, I like it.
You said you weren't familiar with it. Here's some familiarity for you. The crux is that a limited number of people who are accepted to the program get GI-bill type benefits for performing jobs in community service while in school. It's a government tuition subsidy for college students in exchange for community service, and like the Army or the peace corps, there are only a certain number of slots available. If we're going to have government education subsidies, they might as well have the value of service tacked on.
It's an expensive program, but it's not without benefit. The recipients of Americorps services pay Americorps for the services. Recipients pay a very cheap hourly rate, mind you, but it's something. Taxpayer dollars are not just evaporating, in other words. Another benefit is that Americorps gives people who don't qualify for the army a chance to work for tuition (not that you can't do that in the private sector). Among other things, Americorps makes cheap help available to the elderly and disabled while helping a child through college. I can think of a lot worse uses of taxpayer money.
Again - I guess this is the liberal in me.
In conclusion - Obama's plan certainly has its flaws, but I couldn't let this blog post go by without saying something. I think the school curriculum idea is a good one.
The rest - take it or leave it. I'd rather have small government.
Thing is - if we're going to have social programs (which we are) - these types are much more appealing than handing people money if they meet arbitrary requirements. The conundrum of this stupid country of ours is that you can't have some good ideas like this and be a conservative, and you can't have the ideas to reduce regulations in healthcare if you're a liberal. You just can't win. Obama is spend-o-rama. If he'd cut everything else and keep about 50% of this, I'd like him.
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