Schadenfreude

Obama’s America Serves had some interesting plans laid out yesterday that were quickly changed today…

Old Version (11/6/2008)

“When you choose to serve – whether it’s your nation, your community or simply your neighborhood – you are connected to that fundamental American ideal that we want life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness not just for ourselves, but for all Americans. That’s why it’s called the American dream.”

The Obama Administration will call on Americans to serve in order to meet the nation’s challenges. President-Elect Obama will expand national service programs like AmeriCorps and Peace Corps and will create a new Classroom Corps to help teachers in underserved schools, as well as a new Health Corps, Clean Energy Corps, and Veterans Corps. Obama will call on citizens of all ages to serve America, by developing a plan to require 50 hours of community service in middle school and high school and 100 hours of community service in college every year. Obama will encourage retiring Americans to serve by improving programs available for individuals over age 55, while at the same time promoting youth programs such as Youth Build and Head Start.

New Version (11/7/2008)

“When you choose to serve – whether it’s your nation, your community or simply your neighborhood – you are connected to that fundamental American ideal that we want life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness not just for ourselves, but for all Americans. That’s why it’s called the American dream.”

The Obama Administration will call on Americans to serve in order to meet the nation’s challenges. President-Elect Obama will expand national service programs like AmeriCorps and Peace Corps and will create a new Classroom Corps to help teachers in underserved schools, as well as a new Health Corps, Clean Energy Corps, and Veterans Corps. Obama will call on citizens of all ages to serve America, by setting a goal that all middle school and high school students do 50 hours of community service a year and by developing a plan so that all college students who conduct 100 hours of community service receive a universal and fully refundable tax credit ensuring that the first $4,000 of their college education is completely free. Obama will encourage retiring Americans to serve by improving programs available for individuals over age 55, while at the same time promoting youth programs such as Youth Build and Head Start.

Interesting…

So, it seems that this form of conscription is acceptable to the American people. I wonder how this will be enforced if it is adopted. The very interesting thing is that we are expecting forced labor from our children before our prison population. If this happens, I will expect to see chain gangs on the side of the road as well, though this will of course not happen since it’s “demeaning” when prisoners pick up garbage and dig ditches. By changing the language from require to setting a goal, he will win more people over as it doesn’t sound like forced labor, but that’s still basically what it sounds like to me. At least he got rid of the 100 hour per year community service in college in the newer version, which removes the possibility of making income to pay for school for that time.

He also cites that the average college graduate has $19,000 in debt, which apparently he thinks is a bad thing. That is a very manageable amount of debt, especially for someone who will almost definitely make $30,000+ their first year of work after college. The payments on that debt will likely be fairly small, and if the person has good spending habits, they should be able to pay it off in just a few years. The interest, which for figuring I’ll guess is 8%, is only about $1600 a year, so assuming they can put in an extra $4000 per year towards the principal, which most people with a degree can, you’re looking at paying it off in less than 5 years. Having the equivalent of debt that comes from buying a new car is nothing to be worried about. In fact, if these college graduates did the exact opposite of what most of them do and actually buy a used car after college, they will be able to focus their earnings on the debt they already have. If anything, Obama should be pumping money into initiatives that persuade people to avoid unnecessary debt.

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conscription, education, obama, politics, president