Peace Corps Lacks Money to Expand

[Quetzal]

Peace Corps Lacks Money to Expand

WASHINGTON - The Peace Corps is trying to carry out President Bush (news - web sites)'s goal of doubling the number of volunteers it sends abroad by 2007, but it lacks the money to do it.

"The rate of growth for the Peace Corps has slowed and will slow because the funding levels we requested for doubling have not materialized," Peace Corps Director Gaddi Vasquez says.

More than 7,500 volunteers served in 71 countries last year, the most since the early 1970s. The Peace Corps budget, which grew by $26 million to $323 million this year, remains short of that needed to set the agency on track to reach 14,000 volunteers within the five-year period Bush proposed in his 2002 State of the Union address.

After Bush's speech, interest in joining the Peace Corps grew rapidly in post-Sept. 11 America. Applications climbed from 9,156 in 2001 to 11,518 last year, and officials foresee another banner year of applications in 2004.

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Peace Corps Lacks Money to Expand

[sam sarrha]

1. Who wants peace with all the money to be made on war..??

[Snow]

2. In 1972, Tricky trimmed the Peace Corps budget from 250 mill

to 220 then to 200 mill. That's when I was in Peace corps, and the budget doesn't look all that different 30 years later, does it.

[smartass]

3. You mean the tax cuts aren't helping any social groups.