Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, March 5, 1990 TAG: 9003052307
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
In his campaign speech, Bush proposed a "Youth Engaged in Service to America," to be called YES; the organization would have a $100 million budget, matched by private funds, and would send volunteers into inner cities. From April 1989 on, administration officials were saying they'd soon be sending up legislation to promote the concept.
Not that nothing at all was happening. Last November, the White House Office of National Service began issuing six news releases a week citing people and organizations for the help they've given to others. The very first one, mirabile dictu, went to a newspaper - The Memphis Commercial Appeal - for a series of articles on volunteerism. The news releases are "a way of building the mosaic of what the president means by points of light," says Gregg Petersmeyer, director of the office. Others, less kind, call them PR.
Meantime, the plans for YES atrophied; its prospective budget dwindled to $25 million. The president appointed a special advisory committee and told it he wanted a new concept that would "build relationships, not bureaucracies." On Jan. 4 he received its report, recommending a bill to create a Points of Light Foundation with a $50 million yearly budget: half from federal, half from private funds. But nothing's gone from the White House to Capitol Hill.
Democrats in Congress say they're not disposed to wait any longer. On Thursday the Senate passed, 78-19, and sent to the House a bill sponsored by Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., authorizing $125 million for activities to boost community service.
The measure, an amalgam of several senators' ideas, would create three grant programs. One would encourage unpaid volunteers to work in schools and students to work in communities. Another would finance unpaid part-time and poverty-wage full-time civilian service for anyone 18 or older; these volunteers would get post-service education and housing benefits ranging from $3,000 to $8,500 a year.
There would also be a Youth Service Corps of full-time or summertime national and community-service workers who would engage in conservation, urban revitalization, human services and the like. They would get post-service education or training grants of $2,600 to $5,200 a year.
Included in the measure is the $25 million federal share for the president's Points of Light Foundation. But the White House dislikes all those financial incentives in the other programs. Bush also objects to the bill's creating programs for narrow segments of the population. "The president's view," Petersmeyer said, "is that service should be central to every American's life," even though Bush's initial proposal focused solely on youth. Petersmeyer also insists - without offering specifics - that the Points of Light Foundation's objectives are "far more radical and aggressive than what is being debated on the Hill."
Expanding bureaucracies and federal programs is something, generally, to be resisted. But surely it would be helpful to have some structure such as the Kennedy bill provides - not only to encourage people to give their time, but also to channel their energies into certain areas of demonstrated need. Nor is there anything wrong with paying small stipends that would allow some individuals to work fulltime at such projects (and make bigger sacrifices than they could otherwise). There's precedent in such federal programs as the Peace Corps and VISTA.
The nation has a long tradition of voluntarism. Many ideas have been broached in recent years for a program of national service for civilians. If the White House cannot by now come up with its own plan to implement the president's campaign proposal, it should stop sniping at the Senate bill and lend its support. To make the concept a political football will promote not voluntarism, but cynicism.
by CNB