I haven't been on here as much as I would like to be in the past few months. With the election going on, the discussion here, though often partisan and useless, can be very informative of other points of view. I will not be voting for Barack Obama and likely will not be voting for John McCain. I think they are both honorable men who can both represent to the world the story of America. I disagree with both on a lot of policy decisions, enough to the point that I cannot, as of right now, say that I would vote for either one. That being said (and getting my biases out of the way) I am struck by Obama's recent statements on public service and his plans/wishes to make such service mandatory for high schoolers and college students receiving federal loans. Does this strike anyone else as insane? Required service? Isn't the very foundation of the country the notion that while we all should want to help others we are free to not do so? How is it that a presidential candidate can endorse such a position? I won't go into my ideas on the topic much further because I'm sure they'll come up again in discussion but the very idea of the government telling someone that they have to do 50-100 hours of community service seems just wildly out of bounds to me. (Also, I know someone is going to come in and say "well, yeah but what about McCain and torture, FISA, etc. I know. I don't agree with his positions on those issues either but those are topics for other threads.)
I wouldn't sweat it. Obama will change his position on this once he gets some political heat about it (see his relationship with Rev Wright and his Iraq flip-flop)
I could be wrong, but I'm under the impression that the service would be in exchange for his new federal financial aid tax credit for the students. I don't think he's just requiring service for the sake of it. If I understand properly, doing x hours of community service makes you eligible for the tax credit.
I'd be interested to see that documented. From what I understood, and I could have missed something, it seemed that it would be a requirement to anyone receiving federal money of any kind for college and then some subset of high schoolers (I didn't see which high schoolers would be subject).
I'm not sure about his recent statements, but this is from his plan on his website: http://www.barackobama.com/issues/service/ Require 100 Hours of Service in College: Obama will establish a new American Opportunity Tax Credit that is worth $4,000 a year in exchange for 100 hours of public service a year.
I found this which seems to back up your point. http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/jul/02/text-obamas-speech/ So long as loans themselves are not contingent upon service I might be alright with this. I still don't like the notion of someone saying that we all "must" do something but this is much better than conditioning all loan money on compulsory service.
Can you please show me where Obama flip flopped on IRaq? While you are at it show my where McCain hasnt' flip flopped on IRaq, Oil Energy, Bush's tax cuts, his own immigration bill, etc.
I'm not sure what I think of the proposal as a whole, but I do appreciate that it's not just another government giveaway. It's sort of like offering all college students a 100 hr internship at $40/hr. Expensive, but at it's not the financial free-for-all that candidates usually offer.
Just ignore him. You'll never win because facts aren't relevant to him. The discussions here have been much better since the two stopped posting as much.
What's scarier for your average high school senior? Compulsive service in your own community under Obama, or selective service in an expanding Middle Eastern conflict under McCain?
So we are going to give tax credits to full time students. Most of them (at least in my day...could be different now) got everything they paid in back when they file the return. So we are going to refund to them money they never paid in? Hmmm....
some of you guys can't see the forest from the trees, there are benefits that are well beyond financial having kids doing community service. i wish someone had compelled my generation to get out and be active in the community.
You wished you had grown up during a feudalistic system? This proposal absolutely sucks, and is antithetical to the individual liberty on which country was founded. I know that Obama intends to bribe college students with taxpayer money to "volunteer", but he has promised to require high schoolers to do 50 hours a year of community labor. He hasn't specified to what he's going to tie high school service, but No Child Left Behind opens the door to tie it to grade advancement. I am really uncomfortable with enslaving our young people and turning them over to the federal government. Thomas Sowell wrote a great piece about this shortly before California rejected Grey Davis' proposal to do the same thing.
oh stop with the commie crap its tired, this is totally voluntary. your post is idioic, you complain about tax increases you complain about tax breaks, which is it
Fewer kids walking around the mall goofing off spending time instead volunteering at all kinds of organizations and charities that could use the help. Kids learning the value of community makes a better community, no? I think it's a great idea. Enslaving young people...lol Attica! Attica!
This will not be a tax break for many college students, it will be a subsidy. $4000 is much more money than most college students pay in taxes. So they will be making money off the tax system (this is not new ground, the Bush tax cuts moved millions of people from the taxpayer category to the tax-taker category). I'm against slavery, no matter who the slave master is.
I really hate it when people call this kind of proposal a "bribe." A bribe is when you give the reward first, then ask them to do something. In this case, students have to perform the service before they receive the tax credit. So this is not a bribe - it's positive reinforcement. Maybe that still isn't a good thing to some of you, but personally, I think this is a great idea - there are so many sectors of public service that desperately need manpower and this is a good way to encourage young people to fill that need.
one point i'll agree, kids don't pay $4,000 in taxes, but we know this is a way to put money into kid's pockets for tuition. it lessons the burden off some gov't programs (ideally) and it teaches kids the power of community. I would like to read more up on this because if a kid can choose what project they are working on, it would be even greater.
The silliest thing about this proposal is that it's attempting to fix a problem created by federal government programs with a federal government program. When my dad went to college 40 years ago, public universities cost $300 a semester, and today, with way more state funding, the same school costs $3500 a semester. What are the students getting for their 10-fold (3 or 4-fold when you consider inflation) increase in tuition? A very slightly better education and a lot of services that are in no way related to education. Studies (like this one) have shown that government aid only makes tuition more expensive.
