[meandog]

When the plan was posted yesterday, I got FLAMED because McCain suggested it...what say you now, now that Bush is behind it?

[JohnGalt]

We are all New Democrats now

It was only a short while ago that Americorps, a boondoggle for funding the leftist agenda, was slated for extincition.

[StockAyatollah]

Are Bush and McLame talking about adding more paid "volunteers" to Americorps? Just what we need: an expanded Klintoon boondoggle.

[meandog]

what say you now?

[BobWNY]

Hey wasn't that the point of the colonial militias to be homeland security, specifically around your HOME and your neighbors?

[Un-PC]

How nice. Our version of the "Hitler Youth" program.

[JohnGalt]

Wednesday, April 19, 2000 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

EDITORIAL: Shut down Americorps Boondoggle still flunks audits.

No one opposes young people volunteering their time and energies to help the less fortunate.

But let U.S. Rep. Peter Hoekstra, R-Mich., do his job as financial monitor of "Americorps" -- the cadre of college student "volunteers" being paid by the federal government to work at Democrat-approved projects (think they pay anyone to help Weyerhaeuser cut trees? To help poor children learn markmanship or gunsmithing?) -- and Mr. Clinton's apologists accuse the congressman of being "overzealous" and "unfair."

After seven years of trying to get it right, the Americorps boondoggle -- all they're supposed to do is pay small stipends and award scholarships to college volunteers -- still can't explain where the money goes.

Rep. Hoekstra has managed to figure out where some of the money goes. When the military base at San Francisco's Presidio was closed, many expected that valuable real estate might be released to the public sector, helping to relieve the city's desperate housing shortage.

Instead, the administration now spends $1.1 million per year operating the site as an Americorps training center -- the equivalent of using gold bricks from Fort Knox as fishing weights.

"How can you ask for more money for an organization that can't keep its books?" asked Mr. Hoekstra, after Americorps failed another audit on March 3.

The program's officers explain they're doing good works, and that seven years isn't long enough to hire competent bookkeepers. Problem is, that means they can't document that they're doing enough good works to justify an annual allocation of three-quarters of a billion dollars -- or even whether the college-age volunteering might continue unabated, even if Americorps were shut down completely.

Which is precisely what Congress should now do.

[JohnGalt]

In case anyone hadn't already guessed, McCain originally voted against the formation of Americorps; yet another flip-flop to the left.

* In Delaware, AmeriCorps members are recruiting women for the Women, Infants and Children welfare program and even driving them to welfare offices.

* In Virginia Beach, recruits helped the city double the size of an outreach program that signs people up for housing subsidies.

* The Mississippi Action for Community Education (MACE) program, which has been on the AmeriCorps gravy train since 1994, promised in its 1999 grant application that AmeriCorps members would "conduct door-to-door canvassing to identify potential food stamp recipients" and also provide "assistance...in completing necessary applications for food stamps."

[Sir Gawain]

big gubment bump

[Liberal Classic]

Defund the Peace Corps, Americorps,and Senior Corps, refund the taxes or move to DoD budgets.

[OldFriend]

More than likely McCain rushed to be out in front of the president's initiative.

[Sir Gawain]

'nother big gubment bump

[Polonius]

McCain endorsing a massive, wasteful, useless national service program is no surprise. He's still carrying a torch for "mandatory volunteerism," one of the funniest oxymorons ever to come out of government. I just hope Bush doesn't really back him on this.

[Eva]

Bush is throwing McCain a bone, so he will stop barking.

McCain finally found a liberal issue that he could support which would not be offensive to the Republican party. What can we say? The idea is innocuous. Let all the cowardly liberals do volunteer work, here at home. The adults will do the real fighting in this war.

[Gothmog]

I was not around to flame you yesterday and I won't today, but this is a horrible idea. Stupid and wastefull. Maybe Bush's daughters could lead the charge? I doubt it. I have never liked coerced public service and I don't like the new version that wastes taxpayer money on "volunteers."

[Taxman]

The first step that President Bush should take, if he truly wants to improve Homeland Security, is to issue an Executive Order affirming our Second Amendment rights!

If all U.S. citizens were encouraged to freely exercise their unalienable right to keep and bear arms, as the founders intended, the U.S. (including the FRiendly skies) would be much safer.

"Touchy-Feely" stuff will not work.

“I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.”
[Thomas Jefferson, letter to Benjamin Rush, 1800.]

[VA Advogado]

When the plan was posted yesterday, I got FLAMED because McCain suggested it...what say you now, now that Bush is behind it?

I say that McSHAME is a tratorious piece of bilge.

[Dr. Eckleburg]

Same response as yesterday. I'm vehemently against it, no matter who proposes it.

[Rowdee]

I'm really disappointed here......where is the Kiddie Korps.....the group that receives lollipops for saying the Pledge and spying and tattling on parents and neighbors and other relatives?

[Republic]

When the plan was posted yesterday, I got FLAMED because McCain suggested it...what say you now, now that Bush is behind it?

I'd say President Bush knows a good idea when he hears one. And I'd say he is a bigger man that McCain because he puts what is good for our country over a slam against McCain. Tho McCain would NEVER do the same for our President.

[Captain Kirk]

War is the health of the state. It was true in 1917 and it is true in 2001. Why is anyone surprised?