Four years after its founding, AmeriCorps celebrates its 100,000 members vowing to continue to make Americans smarter, safer, and healthier, but critics retort that the whole project is just another example of government waste.
AmeriCorps is a national service program which enables thousands of young adults, ages 17 and older, to participate in community service in exchange for college scholarships. Beginning in 1994, the AmeriCorps program continues to be run by the Corporation for National Service which was established after President Bill Clinton signed the National and Community Service Trust Act in September 1993.
Although this domestic version of the Peace Corps has reached a four-year milestone that took its international counterpart 20 years to reach, those who find fault with the program say it’s costing taxpayers too much. A report by Citizens Against Government Waste entitled “AmeriCorps the Pitiful” states that the program’s budget has doubled from $217 million in 1994 to $438.5 million for fiscal year 1999. “AmeriCorps has become a showcase for the waste, abuse and cynical political manipulation inherent in many federally subsidized civic enterprises,” the report said.
Trying to prevent this kind of waste in the AmeriCorps program, Clinton had originally said in 1993 that the federal government would only give the seed money needed for the program. After that, those who serve the organizations sponsoring their service would guide the program. “Spending tens of millions of tax dollars to build a massive bureaucracy would be self-defeating,” Clinton had said.
Yet, according to the CAGW report, 83 percent of AmeriCorps funds continue to come from the taxpayers.
In trying to show that no waste has taken place within the program, Anne Bushman, a spokesperson for the Corporation for National Service, defended AmeriCorps by saying that a study commissioned by the IBM Foundation, the Charles A. Dana Foundation and the James Irvine Foundation found that for every dollar invested in AmeriCorps, $1.60 to $2.60 or more in direct, measurable benefits was being returned to the community by AmeriCorps volunteers.
These community benefits, according to the public affairs office at the Corporation for National Service, include 2.6 million children being taught, tutored, or mentored; 564,000 at-risk youth being served through after school programs; 52.5 million trees being planted and 419,000 people being immunized. Speaking about CAGW and its report, Bushman said, “Unfortunately, they are long on rhetoric and very short on facts.”
However, the CAGW points out that those who volunteer in AmeriCorps aren’t really volunteers at all. According the CAGW report, when an AmeriCorps volunteer fulfills his or her part of the deal, a reward of $4,725 is earned for a college education. In addition, a living allowance stipend of up to $15,280 annually along with other benefits such as childcare and health insurance is paid.
Although Bushman said that the volunteers rarely, if ever, receive a $15,280 living allowance stipend, she acknowledged that the average volunteer does receive about $7,000 for living expenses, not including benefits. Bushman was quick to point out that this money was just barely enough for the volunteers to live on.
Aaron Taylor, a spokesperson for the CAGW, pointed out, though, that the whole idea of paying volunteers anything was a mockery to the nearly 90 million Americans who volunteer their time freely each year with no expectation of any compensation. “It flies in the face of the very word ‘volunteerism,'” he said.
Speaking in favor of AmeriCorps’ compensation plan, Bushman said that while there are many Americans who volunteer their time each year, most of them do so on a part-time basis while still having paid jobs to sustain them. AmeriCorps volunteers are involved in intensive, full-time national service and have few options for earning a living. Their intentions are not one of paid volunteerism.
Still, the CAGW insists that there is too much waste in the program, and they say that it has become yet another piece of the ever-growing American bureaucracy making bureaucrats out of those who volunteer. “So-called volunteers have become junior bureaucrats charged with promoting a political agenda instead of helping people who need help,” said Thomas Schatz, president of CAGW.
An example of this waste is the apparent flow of money in the program. According to Taylor, the money first goes to the state commissions. “This is just another example of self-important boards doing the work that would otherwise be done voluntarily by the American people,” Taylor said.
Then the money flows down to subcontractors who, according to Taylor, lobby for different kinds of legislation and pull voters in one direction or another. Finally, the money finds its way to the volunteer.
Although AmeriCorps Director Harris Wofford argues that the program is necessary because fewer Americans are volunteering and those who still do are only in work that consists of baby-sitting or singing in a church choir, the CAGW points out that with more than 90 million Americans volunteering their time each and every year, a national organization whose mission it is to spur volunteerism in America isn’t even necessary.
The CAGW says that traditional volunteerism in America is strong and healthy and believes that the AmeriCorps organization is not only a waste of taxpayers’ dollars but is insulting to American volunteers as well. “The program has strayed far from its original goals and needs to be re-evaluated if not completely eliminated,” said Taylor.
