Volunteering for charitable work is great, so long as it is voluntary and not government-coerced. Churches and nonprofits do it much better than the government — Katrina is the best example in recent memory.
But now, in the age of wildly bloating government (antacid tabs, anyone?), the U.S. House has approved a bill that aims to foster volunteerism in the new age of Obama.
The Generations Invigorating Volunteerism and Education Act, known as the GIVE Act — sponsored by Reps. Carolyn McCarthy, D-N.Y, and George Miller, D-Calif. — was approved by a 321-105 vote and now goes to the Senate.
The legislation, slated to cost $6 billion over five years, would create 175,000 “new service opportunities” under AmeriCorps, bringing the number of participants in the national volunteer program to 250,000. It would also create additional “corps” to expand the reach of volunteerism into new sectors, including a Clean Energy Corps, Education Corps, Healthy Futures Corps and Veterans Service Corps, and it expands the National Civilian Community Corps to focus on additional areas like disaster relief and energy conservation.
Later in the article:
But the bill’s opponents — and there are only a few in Congress — say it could cram ideology down the throats of young “volunteers,” many of whom could be forced into service since the bill creates a “Congressional Commission on Civic Service.”
The bipartisan commission will be tasked with exploring a number of topics, including “whether a workable, fair and reasonable mandatory service requirement for all able young people could be developed and how such a requirement could be implemented in a manner that would strengthen the social fabric of the nation.” (Emphasis mine).
Update: If you care to read the bloated bill, click here.
