Barack Obama and Joe Biden's Plan for Universal Voluntary Public Service

[Martin]

Barack Obama and Joe Biden's Plan for Universal Voluntary Public Service

“Your own story and the American story are not separate — they are shared. And they will both be enriched if we stand up together, and answer a new call to service to meet the challenges of our new century … I won't just ask for your vote as a candidate; I will ask for your service and your active citizenship when I am president of the United States. This will not be a call issued in one speech or program; this will be a cause of my presidency.”

— Barack Obama, Speech in Mt. Vernon, Iowa, December 5, 2007


The Problem
Americans Not Asked to Serve After 9/11: President Bush squandered an opportunity to mobilize the American people following 9/11 when he asked Americans only to go shopping.

Insufficient Federal Support for Service: While more than 500,000 people have served in AmeriCorps, the program turns away tens of thousands of applicants a year because of limited funding.

Need for More R&D in Nonprofit Sector: Research and development in the nonprofit sector is limited and there is a disconnect between charitable foundations that can fund innovation and the organizations on the ground that can test new concepts and bring them to scale.

Barack Obama and Joe Biden's Plan

Enable All Americans to Serve to Meet the Nation's Challenges
Expand Corporation for National and Community Service: Obama and Biden will expand AmeriCorps from 75,000 slots today to 250,000 and they will focus this expansion on addressing the great challenges facing the nation. They will establish a Classroom Corps to help teachers and students, with a priority placed on underserved schools; a Health Corps to improve public health outreach; a Clean Energy Corps to conduct weatherization and renewable energy projects; a Veterans Corps to assist veterans at hospitals, nursing homes and homeless shelters; and a Homeland Security Corps to help communities plan, prepare for and respond to emergencies.
Engage Retiring Americans in Service on a Large Scale: Older Americans have a wide range of skills and knowledge to contribute. Obama and Biden will expand and improve programs that connect individuals over the age of 55 to quality volunteer opportunities.
Expand the Peace Corps: Obama and Biden will double the Peace Corps to 16,000 by 2011. They will work with the leaders of other countries to build an international network of overseas volunteers so that Americans work side-by-side with volunteers from other countries.
Show the World the Best Face of America: Obama and Biden will set up an America's Voice Initiative to send Americans who are fluent speakers of local languages to expand our public diplomacy. They also will extend opportunities for older individuals such as teachers, engineers, and doctors to serve overseas.

Integrate Service into Learning
Expand Service-Learning in Our Nation's Schools: Obama and Biden will set a goal that all middle and high school students do 50 hours of community service a year. They will develop national guidelines for service- learning and will give schools better tools both to develop programs and to document student experience. Green Job Corps: Obama and Biden will create an energy-focused youth jobs program to provide disadvantaged youth with service opportunities weatherizing buildings and getting practical experience in fast-growing career fields.
Expand YouthBuild Program: Obama and Biden will expand the YouthBuild program, which gives disadvantaged young people the chance to complete their high school education, learn valuable skills and build affordable housing in their communities. They will grow the program so that 50,000 low-income young people a year a chance to learn construction job skills and complete high school.
Require 100 Hours of Service in College: Obama and Biden will establish a new American Opportunity Tax Credit that is worth $4,000 a year in exchange for 100 hours of public service a year.
Promote College Serve-Study: Obama and Biden will ensure that at least 25 percent of College Work-Study funds are used to support public service opportunities instead of jobs in dining halls and libraries.

Invest in the Nonprofit Sector
Social Investment Fund Network: Obama and Biden will create a Social Investment Fund Network to use federal seed money to leverage private sector funding to improve local innovation, test the impact of new ideas and expand successful programs to scale.

Social Entrepreneurship Agency for Nonprofits: Barack Obama and Joe Biden will a create an agency within the Corporation for National and Community Service dedicated to building the capacity and effectiveness of the nonprofit sector.


http://www.bizzyblog.com/ChangeDotGovService110808.html

 

[Martin]

America Serves

"When you choose to serve -- whether it's your nation, your community or simply your neighborhood -- you are connected to that fundamental American ideal that we want life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness not just for ourselves, but for all Americans. That's why it's called the American dream."

Note: Kind of like sharing the wealth?



The Obama Administration will call on Americans to serve in order to meet the nation’s challenges. President-Elect Obama will expand national service programs like AmeriCorps and Peace Corps and will create a new Classroom Corps to help teachers in underserved schools, as well as a new Health Corps, Clean Energy Corps, and Veterans Corps. Obama will call on citizens of all ages to serve America, by setting a goal that all middle school and high school students do 50 hours of community service a year and by developing a plan so that all college students who conduct 100 hours of community service receive a universal and fully refundable tax credit ensuring that the first $4,000 of their college education is completely free. Obama will encourage retiring Americans to serve by improving programs available for individuals over age 55, while at the same time promoting youth programs such as Youth Build and Head Start.


http://change.gov/americaserves/

 

[Seeker]

Would the 50 hours' service then be tied into one's eligibility to receive Social Security? Medical care? Welfare? Citizenship?

 

[China Connection]

In Australia they brought in work for the dole / unemployment a couple years back

In Australia they brought in work for the dole / unemployment a couple of years back but I don't know how it has worked out. If you were unemployed then you had to work so many hours a week in programs set up by the government.

 

[Vicki]

>>>Obama and Biden will set up an America's<<<

Why is it that all I see when I see these two names together are Osama Bin Laden? Mind control games or what???

Vicki

 

[brokenwings]

Well if it were about making Welfare recipients work for their check then I'd be all for it. But this is different. He is about making us serve and feed the whole world.

 

[amarilla]

The only one I like the sound of is the Clean Energy Corps. We could as a nation save a lot of energy with the replacing of appliances, winterizing and other fairly simple things. It could end up a blessing to many widows and elderly people. That could even provide real jobs. I don't want it to be "voluntary mandatory" though.

A

 

[fruit loop]

This has been posted several times.

P.S. John McCain, John Edwards, and Hillary Clinton all had similar campaign planks.

 

[vetus]

Its all part of the control package. You get the energy corps to sneak around and rat out their neighbors who are running the AC or leaving lights on. You turn classrooms into indoctrination centers. But most of all, you get lots of people used to doing what the government tells them to.

 

[Barry Natchitoches]

TRUE Volunteers -- those who serve because they WANT to serve -- make the best workers.

Those who are FORCED to serve are no longer volunteers at all -- they are temporary SLAVES.

Those who are FORCED to serve do NOT make good workers.


One really good place where you can see this difference immediately is in Disaster Relief, aka Katrina response, Ike response, response to the disaster down in your neck of the woods, etc.


It used to be back 20 or so years ago, that when a huge disaster hit -- or even a smaller, local one -- that the folks who responded were either your neighbors or they were from the cadre of True Volunteers who made up the (what was back then) almost completely all volunteer Red Cross Disaster Services group. Or they were from the all volunteer Salvation Army.

In other words, the folks who showed up to help those who were hit hard by disaster were TRUE VOLUNTEERS, who were there because they WANTED to be.

They were motivated by something inside of them. Something you cannot buy with money.

They would work harder on that volunteer job than they ever did on their paying job back home (I don't know how many times we have joked about that while we are on major disasters, but thing is, behind the jokes we all knew it was really true.). And we did it because that inner motivation was so much stronger than a mere motivation for a paycheck.

We went the extra mile because 1, we WANTED to make sure that we did the best job possible, and 2, we did NOT have .gov meddling in things and keeping us from doing the job that needed to be done.


But in recent years, that has been changing. Red Cross has been loosing lots of their best volunteers -- at first to aging and economic issues, but later because the paid staff has gotten too much like government bureaucrats. Then, when .gov basically took control over Red Cross Disaster Services -- which has been the case since Katrina -- well, that has been pretty much the death knell for the Red Cross volunteer corps. Nowadays, an increasing number of Red Cross workers who respond to national disasters go out there for the paycheck, not because of that inner motivation to serve others that we in the volunteer corps carry within us.

The minute you turn a service organization from a volunteer effort to a required service effort, the QUALITY of the service goes down significantly.

So, for that matter, does PRODUCTIVITY.

Forced workers will sit around and goof off instead of doing their job -- especially when they do not have a paycheck that requires their continued good performance.

So what you will have are lots of people standing around doing nothing, while the needs of the folks they are supposedly serving will go UNMET.


This mandatory service thing is NOT a good idea.

 

[fruit loop]

Barry, the homeless shelter I conduct drives for won't take people who are doing court-ordered community service, or any other "required" service anymore. Those people are dead wood.

 

[von Koehler]

The text of this 1940 poster reads: "Youth Serves the Führer. All 10-year-olds into the Hitler Youth." Membership in the Hitler Youth had become mandatory in 1936.

 

[MaureenO]

Good luck getting those Americans he wants up off their lazy arses. That dog won't hunt. At least not as long as they're getting "free" money from the gubmint. This should be interesting to watch unfold.

Maureen

 

[Wardogs]

This has been posted several times.

P.S. John McCain, John Edwards, and Hillary Clinton all had similar campaign planks.

McCain never EVER had a compulsory service plan. Never.

That is complete BS.

He did have a plank of voluntary service linked to educational benefits.

 

[fredkc]

Barry Natchitoches;

I just read your summation, and you did a bang-up job.

You described Comgress to a T

 

[fruit loop]

Well, Wardogs, you evidently didn't read Obama's service plan either, because it is also voluntary, except for the part about school graduates having to do community service. McCain supported that. So did John Edwards and Hillary.

I don't understand what part of that people don't get, since there have been several threads on Obama's service plan. It's voluntary. Sigh.

 

[kozanne]

I already serve this country. I pay taxes. And apparently, I'm going to 'serve' even more.

I'm drawing the line at forced servitude. Voluntary my a**.

 

[kozanne]

Good luck getting those Americans he wants up off their lazy arses. That dog won't hunt. At least not as long as they're getting "free" money from the gubmint. This should be interesting to watch unfold.

Maureen

For sure. Should provide some interesting moments of levity during our dark days as a socialist nation state, no?

 

[Wardogs]

Well, Wardogs, you evidently didn't read Obama's service plan either, because it is also voluntary, except for the part about school graduates having to do community service. McCain supported that. So did John Edwards and Hillary.

I don't understand what part of that people don't get, since there have been several threads on Obama's service plan. It's voluntary. Sigh.

Wrong again. It's just been changed to voluntary NOW, but it wasn't when first proposed.
Change....

Obama's Change.gov Caught Changing... Marxist Youth Corps Now a Goal Not a Requirement
http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2008/11/hah-obamas-changegov-caught-changing.html#links

Change You Can Believe In.

In the first 24 hours since they set up their Office of the President-Elect website, the plans already changed.

The Marxist youth work programs were required yesterday.
Here's the original plan:

The first draft discussing Obama's Marxist Youth Corps said it was required:
http://74.125.45.104/search?q=cache...e.gov/americaserves/&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us

"Obama will call on citizens of all ages to serve America, by developing a plan to require 50 hours of community service in middle school and high school and 100 hours of community service in college every year."

But, after all of the noise over this controversial requirement, in less than 24 hours Change.gov changed:

Now, the national youth corps is optional:
http://change.gov/americaserves/

"Obama will call on citizens of all ages to serve America, by setting a goal that all middle school and high school students do 50 hours of community service a year and by developing a plan so that all college students who conduct 100 hours of community service receive a universal and fully refundable tax credit ensuring that the first $4,000 of their college education is completely free."

Of course, Change.gov did not mention their changes.

Reboot Congress has more on the latest online developments at Change.gov including this:
http://rebootcongress.blogspot.com/2008/11/child-labor.html

"Kudos to the Obama team for making this slight policy adjustment! I'd recommend that you guys port the change.gov site to a wiki. That will allow everyone to see the sausage being made—the historical edits to each page. Open government is a very good thing and it will prevent the new administration from being painted as Orwellian."

Change.
**********************
I worry about you FL.

You're going to pull a muscle trying to keep up with all the contortions of The One...


wardogs

 

[SouthernGal]

I hope this stays "voluntary" because the moment it becomes mandatory for college student, I quit. I already volunteer but I'll be damned if I'll volunteer under mandatory service to obama.

 

[Martin]

Page scrubbed...



http://change.gov/agenda/service/