One more email to/from Tim Zimmermann about Obama’s service proposal
Posted on November 10th, 2008 by bile Tags: Barack Obama, Be the Change, Change.gov, mandatory service, national service, Service Nation, Tim Zimmermann, universal voluntary national serviceTo Tim Zimmermann:
No serious proposals for mandatory service? President elect Barack Obama indicated on the recently launched Change.gov website that:
Obama will call on citizens of all ages to serve America, by developing a plan to require 50 hours of community service in middle school and high school and 100 hours of community service in college every year.
That was present on the site till the other day. Now it reads:
Obama will call on citizens of all ages to serve America, by setting a goal that all middle school and high school students do 50 hours of community service a year and by developing a plan so that all college students who conduct 100 hours of community service receive a universal and fully refundable tax credit ensuring that the first $4,000 of their college education is completely free.
In a December 5th, 2007 post on Barack Obama’s website, still available, he said:
We’ll reach this goal in several ways. At the middle and high school level, we’ll make federal assistance conditional on school districts developing service programs, and give schools resources to offer new service opportunities.
Indicating that if local schools do not enact the service programs desired they will not receive the federal funding they currently get. Putting greater burden on the local tax payers therefore greatly incentives the schools to enact the requested programs. Given that individuals are required to attend school and would likely not be able to graduate without completing the service it seems to me safe to call it mandatory. Especially if it becomes required for private schools. Even if it were not since anyone who sends their children to private school or homeschools is still required to pay property taxes to pay for government school it is hardly a fair scenario.
Websites I referred to are:
http://www.barackobama.com/2007/12/05/obama_issues_call_to_serve_vow.php
http://change.gov/americaserves/
His response was simply:
Thanks, bile. You have found a lot of conflicting language. Let’s see what the actual proposals turn out to be….
Best, Tim
Tim Zimmermann
Director Of Communications
Be the Change, Inc.
cell: 703-850-0735
BTC: http://www.bethechangeinc.org
ServiceNation: http://www.servicenation.org
Blog: http://changewireblog.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/bethechangeinc
No real answers. No real concern of the possiblity of mandatory national service.
One Response to “One more email to/from Tim Zimmermann about Obama’s service proposal”
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November 10th, 2008 at 10:57 pm
Slavery is ok, as long as you’re not the one being enslaved. Or you can’t see that you’re being enslaved.
I can imagine something like this happening circa June 2012 (or 13, 14 etc.)
“Mr. Vidal, you have demonstrated that you have a knowledge of economics on par with anyone in the world. Your BA disproving monetarist policy has turned everyone here into Austrians, but the University of Chicago cannot give you a piece of paper stating such because you didn’t spend two hours a week teaching inner city kids the virtues of self-sacrifice and how uncle Barry’s new 5 year plan will finally get us back on track.”