Obama Transition Site Gets Stealth Edit
Last week I quoted from the Obama transition site:
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.
Now, it says this:
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.
Ben Smith and others argue that Obama never said it was mandatory. Fortunately, I got a screen shot of the "require" language before the Obama department of Truth got to the page (click for full size):
Thanks to Walter Olson for bringing the swap to my attention.
Postscript: 100 hours for $4000 is a pretty good deal. Not many private sector employers offering $40 an hour to recent high school grads. Everyone out there OK with the government paying the equivalent of $80,000 a year salaries to 18-year-olds for sorting food at the food bank?
Refresher: It seems that some basic definitions are in order. If one is required to work at a certain task, he is not a volunteer. If one is paid $4000 for 100 hours of labor, he is not a volunteer. A volunteer is someone who works of his or her own free will without monetary compensation, solely for the satisfaction of helping out.
