Here’s an editorial from the San Francisco Examiner on the expansion of Americorps.
The expansion of the Americorps program from 75,000 slots to 250,000 may indeed have some merit. Unfortunately, there were a few other things included in the bill that reek of totalitarianism. For instance,
[T]he legislation threatens the voluntary nature of Americorps by calling for consideration of “a workable, fair and reasonable mandatory service requirement for all able young people.” It anticipates the possibility of requiring “all individuals in the United States” to perform such service, including elementary school students.
[T]he new program should “combine the best practices of civilian service with the best aspects of military service,” while establishing “campuses” that serve as “operational headquarters,” complete with “superintendents” and “uniforms” for all participants. It allows for the elimination of all age restrictions in order to involve Americans at all stages of life. And, it calls for the creation of “a permanent cadre” in a “National Community Civilian Corps.”
The bill also calls for “youth engagement zones” in which “service learning” is “a mandatory part of the curriculum in all of the secondary schools served by the local educational agency.” … This updated form of voluntary community service is also to be “integrated into the science, technology, engineering and mathematics curricula” at all levels of schooling.
Several questions arise from these disturbing paragraphs. First, why do we need coerced volunteerism? Secondly, can community service be compelled and what does that say about us as a people? Finally, among many other issues that could be explored, what does volunteerism entail?
That question is probably the easiest. Over 150 years ago, Alexis de Tocqueville noted a quintessential trait of Americans was our sense of service. Our sense of service “prompts [Americans] to assist one another and inclines them willingly to sacrifice a portion of their time and property to the welfare of the state.” There are two keys there: time and property. Thus, volunteerism is freely giving of one’s time, money, or property for the betterment of the community in general. Statistics show that Americans are among the most generous people on the planet. According to the Charities Aid Foundation, Americans gave the equivalent of 1.7% of our Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to various charities in 2005. That doesn’t sound like a lot, until you realize that it’s more than double the next nearest country (the UK at 0.73% of GDP). If that number doesn’t impress you, consider the raw numbers. 1.7% of U.S. GDP is nearly $300 billion.
It’s even more impressive when you consider that the national savings rate for 2005 was negative 0.5%. What this seems to indicate is that Americans would rather do without savings for a rainy day than not give to their fellow man! That’s pretty goddamn impressive, if you ask me!!! But, that’s apparently not good enough for Team Obama! Time is all that counts! Well, what about time? According to the 2005 Current Population Survey, 30% of the American population volunteered time to a charitable organization. The volunteers gave a median average of 50 hours of work to charity. So, every American gives up $1000 and nearly 17 hours per year to help his fellow man. Amongst the average family of four, that’s nearly 10% of our income and probably half of our vacations.
Why, then, do we need coerced volunteerism? As de Tocqueville mentioned, the American service ethic is a three-legged stool. Some of us give of our time, some our money, and some others their property (i.e. clothing or food donation). To emphasize one over the others would seem to make our stool wobbly and invite the destruction of the service ethic as we know it. What’s the point?
Three possibilities spring to mind. First, maybe younger Americans aren’t volunteering like they should. That would certainly be consistent with the narrative of the “Me-First” Generation and public perception. What’s the evidence say? According to National Service.gov, the proportion of high-schoolers (aged 16-19) who volunteer has increased since 1974 from 20.9% to 28.4%. This tracks closely with the percentages from society at large. So, it’s hard to say that teenagers are less likely to volunteer and thus need to be coerced by the government. In fact, the same statistics only show a drop off in volunteerism amongst college students, with increases in volunteerism in all other age cohorts.
So, if there has been no decline in volunteerism over the last thirty years, then maybe it’s the amount of time and money that has decreased. Alas, there’s no evidence at all to suggest that we valuing civic service any less than we did previously. In fact, research seems to confirm that these levels of spending and time are a baseline for American volunteerism. That leads inexorably to the third option: government control.
To a very large extent, charitable organizations are untouched by the hand of the federal government (or state and local governments for that matter). Sure, these organizations may receive some government funding, but they do not depend upon it for their survival. In fact, the growth of the non-profit sector outpaces the economy at large. According to the Urban Institute, the non-profit sector is growing at roughly the twice the rate of the economy at large. Furthermore, government has little, if any, say in how that money is used.
If government wants more of a say in the non-profit industry, they have to control the flow of resources. That’s difficult to do monetarily (especially for Democrats)! Any reduction or elimination of the charitable donation deduction would have to be coupled with a complete overhaul of the American tax system, which is not a favored Democratic policy preference. That leaves controlling the flow of volunteers. Hence, the creation of the “National Community Civilian Corps,” or, as some critics have dubbed it, the “Obama Youth.”
Of course, the idea is immensely popular with politicians! Today’s “Obama Youth” become tomorrow’s “Palin Youth” or some such thing. The ability to create a permanent cadre of government employees whose only job is to “volunteer” to serve organizations whose goals are compatible with the goals of the party in power is simply too tempting. The thought that this might somehow go very badly never seems to have occurred to either side.
And the term “Obama Youth” is apt. President Obama has the largest organization of volunteers in the country right now (three million strong, according to some estimates). What if he used these volunteers to form his permanent cadre of the National Community Civilian Corps? He would now have a personally loyal, fully committed (in the sense that volunteering for Obama is no longer a side job, but a permanent occupation) group of individuals in a position to implement his policy preferences and train an entire generation of young Americans in the ways of Obamanism. The comparison with the formation and history of the Hitler Youth is worthy of greater study.
America is the greatest country on Earth and Americans are some of the most generous and kind people on the planet. Our emphasis on volunteerism is such that we willingly sacrifice a large amount of money and time to create a better world for ourselves and our community. There is no crisis of volunteerism in America and hence no need to create tomorrow’s “Obama Youth.” The principles of liberty and freedom are greatly wounded by these proposals, especially since these concepts reach their pinnacle in our spirit of volunteerism.
