Define VolunteerJonah Goldberg remarks on Barack Obama's plan for
compulsory volunteerism:
In his speech on national service Wednesday at the University of Colorado, Obama promised that as president he would "set a goal for all American middle and high school students to perform 50 hours of service a year, and for all college students to perform 100 hours of service a year."
He 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.
Encouraging volunteerism is fine. Requiring it is not. And you know how it is; all those "free" workers don't come free to the taxpayer; there will have to be adults supervising their work. It's nothing more than a boondoggle to pad the public payrolls.
