From Capitol Hill

It’s National Service – Don’t Call It Volunteering

By Eleanor Clift

Young people between the ages of 16 and 19 are volunteering 100 percent more than their counterparts of the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s while boomers seeking post-retirement fulfillment are on track to double in 10 years the number of AmeriCorps volunteers who are seniors. There are more volunteers than ever in AmeriCorps and the Peace Corps, and the most sought after placement on college campuses is with Teach for America.

Barack Obama’s phenomenal rise from an obscure state senator to presumptive nominee of the Democratic party is due in large part to his connection with the emerging zeitgeist of the country. His slogan, “Yes we can,” embodies the yearning of post-9/11 America to reclaim the national unity lost in the partisan battles between Washington politicians.

Presumptive Republican nominee John McCain, too, stands apart as a war hero who understands firsthand the meaning of sacrifice and the spirit of volunteerism. When the Republican-led Congress tried to kill AmeriCorps early in George W. Bush’s term, McCain led the fight to save the program. 

Republican qualms about AmeriCorps stem from both wanting to deny a legacy to its creator, President Bill Clinton, and from genuine philosophical disagreement over calling people who get paid “volunteers.” Webster’s dictionary defines a volunteer as someone who “performs a service willingly and without pay.” AmeriCorps has 75,000 paid volunteers. “They’re not really getting paid,” said David Eisner, CEO of the Corporation for National and Community Service, the federal agency that oversees government-subsidized volunteer programs, including the Freedom Corps President Bush created after 9/11.

Volunteers receive a subsistence allowance “so they can eat,” said Eisner, along with some modest education benefits once they’ve completed their service. “This whole thing of drawing a line between paid and unpaid volunteers is becoming an anachronism,” he said, citing the growing reliance on an involved citizenry to deal with societal problems that span the range of human life from dropouts to elder care, homelessness and prison recidivism. “Civic engagement is no longer considered just nice. It’s at the heart of solving problems,” said Eisner.

On September 11 and 12, icons of both political parties will gather in New York for a ServiceNation Summit, a massive effort to highlight public service. Alma Powell and Caroline Kennedy top the list of celebrity attendees. Ample corporate support for the event is testimony to the popularity of national service in the context of the presidential campaign. Public service reflects the themes and the lives of both McCain and Obama. Whoever wins is expected to capitalize on the newly awakened spirit in the country by showcasing the programs in place and putting his signature on an expansion.

Where will the money come from? And, how do you justify expanding volunteer programs while cutting back on government social services? Republicans are wary of more government involvement in national service, while Democrats suspect too great a reliance on volunteers is a backdoor effort to trim government programs.

Marguerite Kondracke, president and CEO of America’s Promise Alliance, argues that with so many social needs to be met nationally, we need -- ironically, she says -- to invest in more public service. She finds it ironic because a new administration, even a Democratic one, will be looking for places to cut, either on principle, or to find the money to fund its own initiatives.

Investing in volunteer efforts offers a return, both real and psychological, and that has caught the attention of senior legislators like Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), who from their opposite parties and ideological positions are talking about collaborating on a new bipartisan national service bill. In California, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger elevated the state commission on Service and Volunteering to Cabinet level in recognition of its critical role in supplying hundreds of volunteers to assist victims and firefighters during the recent fires.

With budget restraints at every level of government, paid volunteers are no longer a feel-good luxury. They’re becoming a necessity.

***
Eleanor Clift is a contributing editor for Newsweek magazine. Her column, “Capitol Letter” is posted each week on Newsweek.com and MSNBC. She is a regular political panelist on the nationally syndicated show The McLaughlin Group, which she has compared to “a televised food fight.” She is also a political contributor for the Fox News Channel.