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Originally Posted by sabang  Obama sounds more like Kennedy than Clinton. |
I don't know about that - this national service spiel doen't sound too much off of what Clinton promoted and then created Americorps. Sure Clinton ended up turning his focus mainly creating Americorps, but he also waxed quizotically about volunteering and the idea of citizenship.
I like the idea of promoting more national service, and generally speaking the US population is pretty lazy so the easier it is made for folks to participate the more participation they will get. That being said I am not too keen on driving this from the federal government. Not that I don't think it is a good idea for the President to promote volunteer service and the like, but I am leery of the potential for the politicalization of it, the creation of a federal department or staff to promote/support/control it, and the inevitable pork-barrel crap that ends up attached to pretty much any federally promoted issue. I mean take a look at some of the pork-barrel crap that is attached to bills passed thru congress in the past - hell many of the disaster relief bills should be renamed pork-barrel bills, with a bit of relief.