Leonard
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12:26:18 pm on July 9, 2008 | # |
I came across Jonah Goldberg’s heinous op-ed comparing Obama’s national service plan to slavery - hyperbole much? - via Wonkette’s dead-on rebuttal: “Dumb dumb dumb…”
Even though Goldberg’s comparison is absurd and disgusting, this section gave me pause:
“[Obama] would see that these goals are met by, among other things, attaching strings to federal education dollars. If you don’t make the kids report for duty, he’s essentially telling schools and college kids, you’ll lose money you can’t afford to lose. In short, he’ll make service compulsory by merely compelling schools to make it compulsory.”
He wants to do what now? Sure enough, from Obama’s website, Obama would “establish a new American Opportunity Tax Credit that is worth $4,000 a year in exchange for 100 hours of public service a year” and “ensure that at least 25 percent of College Work-Study funds are used to support public service opportunities instead of jobs in dining halls and libraries.”
No no no no no. God, this plan is so full of bad ideas my head might explode:
- Paying volunteers is oxymoronic on the face of it. But more importantly, monetary compensation deprives someone working for the public good of any moral authenticity. Yes, it may seem generous for a society to pay him, but really it just cheapens our national character.
- Along the same lines, the work-study plan would be a disincentive for other students to serve. Why should a student who doesn’t receive work-study grants volunteer to visit old people when his peers are getting paid $9 an hour by the Federal Government to do it?
- I’m close enough to my high school years to remember vividly how laughable some of our “community service” projects were and how liberally the hours were counted. Certainly few of us were altruists, but we already had more than enough incentives: college admissions, scholarships, resume filler, what have you. We don’t need more.
- The goal should be to ensure that all students have the opportunity to go to college. All means all means all. It doesn’t mean a two-tier system where “more deserving” students get a tax break.