An Obama National-Service Program

[babylonsister]

http://www.newsweek.com/id/177725


BETWEEN THE LINES
Jonathan Alter
Don’t Muffle the Call to Serve

From FDR to Bill Clinton's AmeriCorps, leadership in service has always come from the president.
Published Jan 3, 2009

From the magazine issue dated Jan 12, 2009

snip//

Consider this: for 1 percent of the stimulus, about $7 billion, Obama could create 8 percent of the 3 million new jobs he has promised. Those 250,000 new national-service slots would simultaneously fulfill his campaign pledge to young people. And with 15 years of scandal-free AmeriCorps apparatus in place, service jobs can be established with Rooseveltian speed, an important criteria for inclusion in the stimulus. At about $20,000 each, AmeriCorps jobs are also much less expensive than those in construction.

The other standard Obama has wisely applied to the package is that every dollar spent should help the country long-term. Thus the projects enumerated by Summers would rebuild infrastructure, lessen dependence on foreign oil and reduce health-care costs. But investing in human capital is every bit as critical for the future. Service develops the talents of those who perform it as well as those they help. It changes lives. And communitarian thinking is contagious. Each year, AmeriCorps's 75,000 full-time members leverage another 1.7 million volunteers.

The Obama team knows a thing or two about community-building. With 3 million volunteers and as many as 15 million supporters in his e-mail database, the new president possesses both the largest American political organization ever built and a potentially powerful instrument of service and social change.

But as ecstatic campaign memories fade and those cheery Webcasts pile up in the mailbox, Obama World will need fresh ways to keep people involved. The millions who gather this month in Washington for the Inaugural (or watch excitedly from home) want to be told how they might do something for America beyond going to the mall. Their pent-up idealism could wither in harsh times without more outlets.

This is particularly true of the young. If they graduate from high school or college in June with no job and no chance for national service, more than a few might wonder if the whole Obama thing was for real. Young people shouldn't be bought off with favors any more than some other constituency. But their dreams are hardly inconsequential. So including Kennedy-Hatch "in the package"—nearly tripling national service opportunities overnight—is not just another Washington gambit. It's a way of restoring faith in the decency of the country. With that faith comes confidence and recovery.

© 2009

[Kdillard]

1. Obama has a plan outlined to expand Americorp to 250,000

as part of his service agenda already as far as I know on change.gov. I am going to trust his plan as laid out has not changed because I haven't heard otherwise.

[jumptheshadow]

2. Nice, now what about older people?

I truly don't know the answer to this question.

With so many older Americans losing their pensions and 401K funds, more of them will be seeking retirement jobs.

Will an Obama administration provide funding for programs that employ older Americans in community service/infrastructure jobs?

[babylonsister]

3. I don't know. Maybe you should suggest that at change.gov nt

[Berry Cool]

4. I was just about to say that.

I have been worried for some time now that any program designed to get people back to work, or get them TO work, or get them into public service is going to be targeted exclusively at the young. That's just crazy, especially when you consider how much harder it is for unemployed older, more experienced people to find work in their field that pays as much as their old job. It's also a lot harder for them to shift gears and do something entirely new.

Why should public service jobs be only for the young?

[jumptheshadow]

5. I don't believe older people get paid in government programs now

Or at least I couldn't find paid positions when I looked up community service websites, while the younger people got paid salaries or at least stipends.

It almost goes without saying that older people could bring a lot of experience and know-how to any community program.