National Service: A Bad Idea: There's no such thing as a "paid volunteer.
Taxes are being raised because ol the federal deficit. Even social programs with broad bipartisan support, such as Head Start, cannot be funded at a fraction of their authorized spending levels, also because of the deficit. But both houses of Congress have picked just this moment to launch a program that its advocates ultimately would like to expand to one costing more than $11 billion a year. And to do what? To pay "volunteers" to perform community service.</br></br>ÛÏThe National Service Act of 1990Û now headed for President Bush's signature has received little public attention. Yet funded at $62 million the first year, scheduled to increase to $120 million by the third year and intended to serve as the advance guard of something far grander, it embodies exactly the kind of Utopian idea that has brought us nationally to the present condition of fiscal instability and social resentments.</br></br>Congressional debate showed that even during a budget crisis members were loath to vote against something as noble as volunteering. But, in addition to budgetary considerations, it is precisely because true voluntarism is indeed noble that they should have protected it against government institutionalization.</br></br>The American concept of service is rooted in our Judeo-Christian heritage and the frontier tradition. By definition it is characterized by selflessness and personal sacrifice. To the extent government removes the sacrifice and actually makes the service financially attractive, volunteering is transformed into another government jobs program. National service is particularly reminiscent of the notorious CETA program of the 1970s, which similarly was run through local government and private agencies and ended in profligate waste and corruption.</br></br>In most cases, ÛÏpaid volunteePÛª is an oxymoron. ' President Bush initially avoided this policy contradiction when he proposed a small government and private effort to promulgate the service ethic among schoolcliildren and others: his 'Thousand Points of Light."