Oh I already figured that you clowns don't know what you're talking about. If this legislation you claim to be familiar with existed at all, you'd be linking to it just so you could puff yourself up like a peacock. It's a bullshit lie & you know it.
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Oh I already figured that you clowns don't know what you're talking about. If this legislation you claim to be familiar with existed at all, you'd be linking to it just so you could puff yourself up like a peacock. It's a bullshit lie & you know it.
That is, if he's still alive by then...Quote:
Originally Posted by sugdaddie69
From a European POV- this is the first time in years that the US is actually in the news in a positive way. There isn't a week without any good news about something being decided or done. A couple of more years of Bush and his henchmen and the US would have been a third world country.
I accept that Obama is not perfect, but he seems to be doing a bloody good job so far seeing the mountains he has to climb.
Did you not see the link I just provided?Quote:
Originally Posted by hippifried
Not so fast, chicken littles!
From factcheck.org re hr 1388:
http://www.factcheck.org/askfactchec...c_service.html
Forced Public Service
Some Internet postings claim the bill says the government must come up with plans for a “mandatory service requirement for all able young people,” but that phrase is nowhere to be found in either the House-passed bill or the Senate version.
The bill as introduced in the House, however, did call for examining whether this would be a good idea. It called for a congressional commission to "address and analyze" several topics, including "issues that deter volunteerism" and how they can be overcome, how expanding international public service might affect diplomacy and foreign relations, and "[w]hether a workable, fair, and reasonable mandatory service requirement for all able young people could be developed, and how such a requirement could be implemented in a manner that would strengthen the social fabric of the Nation." The commission would also investigate "[t]he need for a public service academy, a 4-year institution that offers a federally funded undergraduate education with a focus on training future public sector leaders."
All of that language is now gone. To be clear, the original bill didn't call for a mandatory public service program, but called for the exploration of whether one could be established. But the entire section on creating a "Congressional Commission on Civic Service" was stripped from the bill.
It is part of a separate piece of legislation, introduced on March 11 (two days after H.R. 1388 was introduced) by Democratic Rep. Jim McDermott. H.R. 1444 was referred to a House committee. No other action has been taken on the bill. McDermott introduced a similar bill in 2007 and it died, never making it out of a subcommittee.
Furthermore, Hatch, a Republican cosponsor of the Senate's national service bill, said on the floor of the Senate that nothing in the legislation called for mandatory service:
Hatch, March 23: Consistent with our All-Volunteer Army and volunteer opportunities and individuals' choice in communities, nothing in this legislation is mandatory. This bill simply provides more Americans more choices and opportunities to give back to their neighborhoods and their country all through the means which they freely choose.
The only mention of anything being mandatory in either of the bills passed by the House or Senate is in the definition for "youth engagement zone program." Such a program is eligible for funding under the bill, and it is defined in the House bill as one that provides school-based or community-based "service learning opportunities" in which "(A) not less than 90 percent of the students participate in service-learning activities as part of the program; or (B) service-learning is a mandatory part of the curriculum in all of the secondary schools served by the local educational agency." That's not a call for making public service mandatory, but rather an explanation of one type of program that can get money under the bill. The Senate bill does not include the word "mandatory," saying instead that "service-learning is a part of the curriculum."
We have received several inquiries about this bill, which has passed both the House and Senate with significant bipartisan support. Some e-mails and conservative Web sites say it requires the government to draw up plans for a “mandatory service requirement for all able young people.” Others say the bill forbids participants from attending church.
These claims are false. Neither the House-passed bill nor the Senate-passed version says these things.
Careful. El Nino! These are facts! Read them at your own risk! They may just cause a crack in the fantasy world that you inhabit.
The law in question is a revision of the national service act that includes selective service. We stopped drafting people into the military 30 years ago, but the selective service system didn't go away. Of course it's mentioned in the bill, but there's no corelation between mandatory & volunteer service. There's no dots to connect.
You toons are so damn gullible. Somebody posts an op/ed on the makinshitup blog & you fall all over yourselves trying to convince everybody else that it must be true because it sounds conspiratorial. The blogosphere is the worst possible source for accurate information. Get off the email list from usostupidyoubuythisbs.com.
I went on a government website and read the bill (HR 1388) which at the time did state manditory service and even gave the number of hours of annual service required (500 hours for college age people, 100 hours for high school students). I didn't read it on some shitty infowars site.
And ACTA is also very real and Europe is already working on instating the law.
I am not sure on those hours, but I do remember reading the same thing.Quote:
Originally Posted by kittyKaiti
When running Obama ran on (of several ideas) the idea of requiring students to engage in volunteer-type work in exchange for "tax credits." This plan was detailed at change.gov under the title "America Serves."
As the plan was originally described on his website of the time (change.gov), this would have REQUIRED students of middle school age and over of doing a certain amount of hours a year in approved volunteer work, the amount of hours would increase by age bracket, and for college students it would be a required part of the federal financial aid packages awarded to students.
By the last part, what this meant was if you were getting financial aid from the feds, part of that aid would be having to do a certain amount of hours of work, for up to a $4,000 tax credit. What kind of work it was, was never stated but Obama did state during the campaign that it wouldn't be like the work studies schools currently employ where students are paid to "hang out" in libraries. The current version of change.gov has reinforced this thought, saying that Obama wants a cap on the amount of money existing work study aid can be used for work in libraries, dining halls etc of colleges.
I was kind of on the fence about this when it was initially made public, because of the pay. When I was working in high school I was working the max amount of hours per week allowed by child labor laws, at $5.25/hr, and of that I lost somewhere around 20% of that to taxes, another 20% to transportation costs (gas, insurance etc for my car). I would be lucky to bring home 2800 a year, and of what I could bring home- that's what allowed me to pay for hrt while I was at college (diy and then getting it through slips after that). $4,000 tax free? I would have been jumping with joy for a job like that back then (depending on what was involved work-wise, I do have a lot of health problems to keep in mind- Obama's persistent ranting that it not be "work in libraries" makes the cynical side of me wondering if he's envisioning CCC-style manual labor with tent cities, hand tools, and outdated equipment to build parks & sidewalks).
Once the conservatives started bitching about the plan, Obama kept rephrasing it to try to keep it from becoming controversial. Back during the election period & the few weeks following it, change.gov's listing for this service plan changed several times. The current version states:
Bold added by me.Quote:
America Serves
"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."
As the new administration takes shape, Barack Obama and Joe Biden will call on Americans from every walk of life to serve. President-elect Obama and Vice President-elect Biden will expand national service programs like AmeriCorps and the Peace Corps and will create new service organizations to meet the nation's challenges head on:
* a Classroom Corps to help underserved schools
* a Health Corps to serve in the nation's clinics and hospitals
* a Clean Energy Corps to achieve the goal of energy independence
* a Veterans Corps to support the Americans who serve by standing in harm's way
Obama and Biden will call on citizens of all ages to serve. They'll set a goal that all middle school and high school students engage in 50 hours of community service a year, and develop a plan for all college students who engage in 100 hours of community service to receive a fully-refundable tax credit of $4,000 for their education. Obama and Biden 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.
The Obama-Biden administration's volunteer initiatives are still taking shape, but take a moment now to let us know that you're interested, and we'll keep you posted on all the latest developments.
Enter your information below to let us know you're interested in serving the nation -- and contributing your energy and efforts to confronting the problems we face together.
This wording is nothing like the first version of the plan posted on that website.
Unfortunately, I could not find a cached version of the website as it appeared c-Early November 2008. Change.gov was briefly logged on archive.org's "way back machine," but it appears the feds told them to stop logging change.gov and its no longer in their databases. Some blogs have claimed to have saved the html files, but I am not sure they'd be credible...
IF using blogs as a source, this is one of the earlier descriptions for the plan:
Bold emphasis added by me.Quote:
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
The pay isn't really an issue. Conscription is still conscription, even if the pay is good. I think that the original wording was a mistake in terminology, I cannot picture Obama being stupid enough to think that he could require all middle school aged students to engage in civil service. That shit my fly in places like Israeli where 2 year service starting at age 16 is a required part of citizenship, but it would be pure political suicide to try that here. I can't even imagine the backlash of telling the suburbanite highschoolers who don't have to work that the feds are demanding they do 50 hrs a year of volunteer work (nevermind at a pitiful $10 an hour). I've got a bridge to sell to anyone who'd buy that would go over well...