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Does AmeriCorps Work?

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from: Doug Bandow
to: Harris Wofford

Posted Tuesday, Dec. 7, 1999, at 9:00 PM ET

Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, a columnist for Copley News Service, and the author of The Politics of Envy: Statism as Theology (click here to buy it). Harris Wofford is a former senator from Pennsylvania and the current CEO of the Corporation for National Service, the agency that administers the AmeriCorps program.

If the question were only, Has AmeriCorps done some good? the answer would be, Of course. It would be difficult to spend $3 billion, much of it going to worthy groups, and not do some good. But it is not enough to say that some good has been done. Is this tax-funded "service" worth the cost?

Aggregate statistics don't tell us much. Did an AmeriCorps member working for a particular organization feed a poor person? Or fax off a press release endorsing higher funding for AmeriCorps?

One has to balance the dubious with the laudable. For example, the Orange County (California) Civic Center Barrio Housing Corp. had AmeriCorps participants shuffle paperwork and raise money. Indiana's Ivy Tech State College may have used AmeriCorps personnel as recruiters.

AmeriCorps members have attended campaign rallies, handed out political literature, and attended Earth Day rallies. Volunteers have spent time in self-esteem training and have offered condom education. CNS funded the ACORN Housing Corporation, an affiliate of the highly political ACORN.

Jill Cunningham of Capital Research Center visited service projects and found absenteeism, high drop-out rates, low workloads, lots of training and traveling, and not much service of value. Interestingly, she writes, the focus of many "members seems to be incredibly, unswervingly, on themselves."

Even if the overall balance remains positive, it is difficult to make an accurate assessment given the Corporation's lack of financial accountability. The CNS may be improving, but five years have passed and many of the same problems persist. Yes, as you argue, "devolution is not without risk," but the risks are too high for taxpayers who cannot choose to take their money elsewhere.

There's a more fundamental point, however. Almost any "service" project sounds attractive, but even attractive-sounding jobs don't necessarily yield significant social benefits. Some national-service proponents have estimated up to 5.3 million "unmet social needs." Human wants are unlimited, however, so one has to balance costs and benefits.

Paying people to "uplift community pride using arts as a medium," as did one project in Puerto Rico, or to change light bulbs and hand out surveys, as have other AmeriCorps participants, means forgoing whatever else could be done by those people and with the money spent on them. Even when good work is being done, $26,000 per head is a high price.

Anyway, to call something "service" does not mean it is necessarily more valuable than any number of other alternative activities, whether hiring a nurse, investing in new technologies, conducting medical research--or contributing to charities in which government is not a partner, senior or junior.

Your most interesting assumption may be that only government can provide the resources necessary for the "independent sector to take the leading role in solving critical problems." However, private philanthropy dwarfs the AmeriCorps budget. And full- time, paid volunteers existed before AmeriCorps was established.

Indeed, AmeriCorps does not create resources. It merely reallocates them. Rather than have the IRS pilfer people's wallets to fund good groups, we should encourage more charitable giving and volunteering, which have been rising. Community and political leaders need to encourage service. They should educate and exhort--and lead by example.

Turning the job of funding the independent sector over to government encourages people to further abdicate their civic obligations. As I previously suggested, carefully choosing which charities to support is itself a critical form of service. Shipping one's money to AmeriCorps for distribution to assorted organizations is the easy way out; deciding which charities to support forces personal involvement and thus strengthens the sinews of community.

This is America's tradition. After all, Habitat for Humanity, to cite one example, long succeeded without government subsidies. If it needs the extra volunteers now provided by AmeriCorps, it should make its appeal to citizens, not legislators. In the long term, people will be less likely to give if they perceive less need to do so because of government funding.

If not AmeriCorps, then what? Tear down existing regulatory barriers to voluntarism. Create a charitable tax credit. Kill the miasma of wastrel programs in Washington and cut people's taxes accordingly.

Finally, send a message to the American people: Caring for the needy is in the first instance a responsibility of individuals, families, and communities, not government. That requires both contributing and volunteering. We should rely on Americans' generosity, not threats of IRS prosecution.

AmeriCorps was created with the best of intentions. But it is further shifting the center of gravity in the volunteer community from civil to political society.

Ultimately, the way to call America to civic greatness is to ask people to meet the challenge before them. The result will be a complex mosaic reflecting America's diversity: Some part-time voluntarism and some full-time employment; some activities within community groups, some within charities, some within churches, some within families, and even some within businesses.

But real compassion means sacrifice. It means giving personally, not having the government force one's neighbors to write checks. This is the way for Americans to achieve civic greatness.

dialogues
entries
123456
from: Doug Bandow
to: Harris Wofford

Posted Tuesday, Dec. 7, 1999, at 9:00 PM ET
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Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, a columnist for Copley News Service, and the author of The Politics of Envy: Statism as Theology (click here to buy it). Harris Wofford is a former senator from Pennsylvania and the current CEO of the Corporation for National Service, the agency that administers the AmeriCorps program.
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