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GIVE/SERVE Act passes Senate…required-service creepiness now part of H.R. 1444

By: techsan (Diary)  |  March 31st, 2009 at 11:13 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

While everyone was watching GM get swallowed up by the state, actions were being taken to move our kids a step closer to being swallowed up as well.  

The GIVE Act passed the house, went to the Senate and was renamed the SERVE Act.  It’s on it’s way back to House to be accepted “as is” before heading to Obama.  I found couple summaries from Michelle Malkin here and here.  She describes it as “charity at the point of a gun.”  Well said.  

Some text from the Desert News:

The bill by Kennedy and Hatch would authorize spending $5.7 billion over five years to expand or create a variety of national service programs, including tripling the size of AmeriCorps from 75,000 positions to 250,000. It has been seen as a sort of going-away honor for Kennedy.

Well, isn’t that touching.  Orin Hatch (R-UT) can be thanked for this so-called honor, and for this waste of my money and yours.   And this…

The legislation would increase the education reward for participants in national volunteer programs from $4,725 to $5,350 a year, and that will automatically increase with the maximum Pell grant in the future. Volunteers older than 55 could transfer the education reward to a child, foster child or grandchild.

So you can participate and get money…and even give it to your kids or grandkids.  Isn’t this a system of paid volunteerism?  Aren’t people paid to work otherwise known as employees?  Why volunteer for church when I can “volunteer” for ObamaCorps?

Rep Foxx (R-SC) gets honorable mention for this attempt:

One vigilant House member, GOP Rep. Virginia Foxx, successfully attached an amendment to the GIVE Act to bar National Service participants from engaging in political lobbying; endorsing or opposing legislation; organizing petitions, protests, boycotts or strikes; providing or promoting abortions or referrals; or influencing union organizing.

This included ACORN and Planned Parenthood in practice, but reports say it was eventually blocked.

Thankfully (as is, thank you Congress for not taking away my God-given freedoms), the requirement for our kids to participate was dropped from the Senate bill.  However, keep an eye on H.R.1444.  It exists “To establish the Congressional Commission on Civic Service to study methods of improving and promoting volunteerism and national service, and for other purposes.”  The commission is acting on these findings:

Congress finds the following:

(1) The social fabric of the United States is stronger if individuals in the United States are committed to protecting and serving our Nation by utilizing national service and volunteerism to overcome our civic challenges.

(2) A more engaged civic society will strengthen the Nation by bringing together people from diverse backgrounds and experiences to work on solutions to some of our Nation’s major challenges.

(3) Despite declines in civic health in the past 30 years, national service and volunteerism among the Nation’s youth are increasing, and existing national service and volunteer programs greatly enhance opportunities for youth to engage in civic activity.

(4) In addition to the benefits received by nonprofit organizations and society as a whole, volunteering and national service provide a variety of personal benefits and satisfaction and can lead to new paths of civic engagement, responsibility, and upward mobility.

I don’t know where these findings came from, but they are needs already well-met by our traditional system of churches and nonprofits.   A key section is here:

(5) The effect on the Nation, on those who serve, and on the families of those who serve, if all individuals in the United States were expected to perform national service or were required to perform a certain amount of national service.

I’m strongly against spending billions on ObamaCorps, but I’ll console myself that it’s voluntary.  This country certainly does not need “help” by our government in the form of required service.  

Get offa my lawn!!!! (h/t to peg_c.)

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  • Trelaina

    She is my Rep and I am extremely proud of what she is doing.

    Also, wasn’t mandatory service language removed from the bill?

    • techsan

      She deserves credit for the good effort she put forth trying to use the tactics of the left against them.. Unfortunately, it appears it was tabled and not included in the final Senate bill.

      And, by what I read, yes, the language on mandatory service was removed from the Senate version which the House is to approve. However, HR1444 was introduced separate and contains the same language that was removed from the House version (known as GIVE).

  • mom2oneson

    Americorps in the first place. They are “volunteers” but they are paid a stipend which is like a salary, daycare, allowences for different things and student loans repayment. It seems like it’s gov funded jobs for non profits. I’m sure there are exceptions but it seems like it attracts the kids that aren’t ambitious or for some reason didn’t get a job after college. The students that are ambitious and trying to save the world are usually getting hard science or professional graduate degrees.

  • techsan

    I’m learning more about AmeriCorps. One interesting critique is here. AmeriCorps originated with Clinton, and the links points out (in 1996!):

    AmeriCorps reveals the administration’s fundamental misreading of the components of healthy citizenship. The program provides government subsidies for voluntary activity at the federal, state, and local levels. By so doing, it conflates volunteering — which nearly 90 million Americans regularly do — with a federal-government jobs program run by a centralized bureaucracy. It is, in essence, a Great Society-style program trying to pass as a plan to reinvigorate citizenship and heal communities. But its very premise — using federal resources to promote voluntarism — contradicts the principle of self-government that lies at the heart of citizenship. AmeriCorps blurs the line between the problems and needs best addressed by individuals, voluntary association and localities and those best addressed by the federal government. Instead, it seems to suggest that social problems are the responsibility of the central government, and the federal bureaucracy must direct and improve local solutions.

    So the theory of a public entity partnering with private entities sound great to many. It markets well and is something to feel good about. However, the report previously notes

    More than one-fourth of AmeriCorps volunteers were placed in federal, state, or local government agencies — where they would reinforce the bureaucratic state, not rebuild the voluntary sector.

    Another report, here, points out the waste inherent in any large government program (sure it from 1995, but who really thinks it has improved, or will improve?).

    AmeriCorps has become a showcase for the waste, abuse and cynical political manipulation inherent in many federally subsidized civic enterprises. Paying a stipend to these high school and college-age volunteers demeans the efforts of thousands of other young adults who volunteer simply because they care. Indeed, AmeriCorps recruits, nearly 40 percent of whom drop out of the program, have failed to catch the volunteer “spirit,” despite getting paid for their work. Nor is there the slightest evidence that the program has infected others with the volunteer “bug.” AmeriCorps is the no-show job of the new millennium.

    As a bonus, note the relationship between AmeriCorps and ACORN from the same report

    In 1995, AmeriCorps gave a large grant to an advocacy group called ACORN (Association for Community Organizations for Reform Now). AmeriCorps recruits were assigned to lobby for legislation, collect dues, register voters, and participate in political demonstrations. After its activities came under scrutiny by AmeriCorps’ own Inspector General, the ACORN Housing Corporation was forced to return a $1.1 million grant.9

    The more things “change”, the more they stay the same, huh?!

  • mom2oneson
  • mom2oneson

    How did that get in there?

    “cross-grade tutoring program”
    Is that a new phrase for a kid tutoring another kid?

    Seniors don’t get us much educational money I think.

    Does anyone know what the foster care ammendment is?

    The crisis pregnancy center ammendment was a good idea whoever put that in there.

  • mom2oneson

    The youth or college age students helping youth/children is very disturbing. I think half of bill this is an attack on poor babies and children, look at how many times it references to disadvantaged and it has roles for early childhood (daycare) staff.

    They would never get away with trying to put these programs where teens work with children in suburban schools or in private daycares that don’t accept gov subsidies.

  • mom2oneson

    It was all democrats. 2 voted for it, good for them. :)

  • tnjim
  • tnjim

    Probably should have said National Servants instead of volunteers

  • mom2oneson
  • Praying

    I have a whole lot of volunteering in my life…from the time I was in high school to just today. But I have NEVER voted democrat! Thanks for correction!

  • tnjim