About ten years ago, I had the pleasure of reading Stephen Waldman's book
"The Bill", a case study of the National Public Service Bill's tortuous trip to become the program we now know as
Americorps. Most people forget that for all his faults, this was a centerpiece of President Clinton's 1992 campaign: a public service program that employs young people domestically to work with and for the most in need in our society, in exchange for a modest stipend and college grant.
In reading the book, you find that Clinton's "big idea" got pared down considerably by Congress and was a shadow of what Clinton wanted by the time it was all over.
And a segment of that shadow is about to be killed off Preisdent Bush.
In the President's latest budget to Congress, he has a proposed
a $22 million dollar cut in Americorps National Civilian Conservation Corps. This program allows young people to work in the areas of disater relief and homeland security, and is part of the ongoing relief efforts for Hurricane Katrina. Now, in the grand scheme of the federal budget, such a cut may not seem like a lot when billions of dollars are tossed around.
However, it's a pretty damn big cut when you consider the total budget for Americorps' NCCC last year was $27 million.
Kids, that's a cut of over 80%.
It will leave a five million dollar budget for a program that has never gotten a chance to blossom. It effectively kills one part of the Clinton legacy he probably is personally most proud of.
The program helped instill a new generation with a sense of public service:
The program "enhanced my desire to help out with social justice," said NCCC alumnus Brian Roberts, 24, who works full time on behalf of abused and neglected children for the Children's Law Center in Washington.
"I had always seen myself as some sort of more office/corporate-type person," Roberts said. "And then I did AmeriCorps and I realized that what I really enjoyed was working with people, especially people who might not be able to help themselves."
Not only that, it could punch a hole in the government's feeble effort to rebuild the Gulf Coast:
These days, about half of all participants are in Mississippi and Louisiana at any given time, pitching in with Hurricane Katrina rebuilding efforts for eight-to-nine-week stints...
They say the reason is because Americorps' NCCC is "too expensive". Uh-huh. Not as expensive as the billions we've sank into Iraq. Or how about the billions we pour into a National Missile Defense system that won't work or we don't need?
I bring up Defense spending because, according to Bush, the increase in defense spending in his budget is something to be proud of:
Provides $439.3 billion for the Department of Defense's base budget--a 7-percent increase over 2006 and a 48-percent increase over 2001--to maintain a high level of military readiness, develop and procure new weapon systems to ensure U.S. battlefield superiority, and support our servicemembers and their families
I did the math, and I'm no math major. But one percent -- one friggin' percent -- of this year's Defense budget could fund Americorps' NCCC 150 times over .
Goddammit, it's about motherfuckin' priorities. We could fund an ARMY of young people to rebuild the Gulf and give them generous grants for their service if we gave a damn.
Fortunately, though, to borrow from Monty Python, the program's not dead yet. Alumni of the program have set up a website to help save Americorps' NCCC. As the Congress starts gearing up to do battle over the budget, we need to get our asses in gear to start saving this program and the hundreds of others is going to cut or flat out eliminate.
I intend to make this diary the first in a series of diaries regarding "Budget Battles" we will face over the coming year. In an election year, we need to make sure the heat is on ALL Members of Congress, Democrat or Republican, to understand where our priorities lie.
Let me say something else, too. Before you lose hope, appropriations and programs are a lot easier to save, and battles easier to win, than judicial apppointments. It's a simple fact. Even the most hard-line Republican is willing to listen to constituents on spending money if it means something for his district, or the grassroots is aware and pissed about it. As a housing advocate, I've seen this first hand: money for the poor is easy to cut, until they see some of that money is doing work in their district.
So let's go out and win this one. Because I guarantee you this:
If they pass this cut to Americorps' NCCC, the program will be gone forever .
UPDATE: As pointed out in the comments by Volvo Liberal, this is not a full cut to Americorps, but a segment of Americorps known as the National Civilian Community Corps. The kicker is that the NCCC handles disaster relief and homeland security portions of Americorps. And of course, we don't need any help in those areas whatsoever right now . So it's not killing off public service per se, but a good portion of it. And if Bush has his way, I'm guessing this is the first step to killing off the whole shooting match. They don't give a fig about Americorps.
UPDATE II: I've edited the diary to reflect that this is a cut in Americorps' NCCC, not Americorps as a whole.