[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 9 (Tuesday, January 17, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S986-S987]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                            NATIONAL SERVICE

  Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I wanted to speak on the issue of 
national service. The new issue of Newsweek quotes the new Speaker of 
the House as unequivocally opposing national service because it is, in 
his words, ``coerced voluntarism.''
  I believe the new Speaker does not understand national service or the 
grounding that went on behind it.
  As one of the founding godmothers of this initiative, I rise this 
afternoon to express my dismay at yet another attempt by Republican 
leaders to distort a bold approach to solving our country's problems.
  It appears from these recent comments and others made earlier on the 
floor today, that some in this Congress will try to lump national 
service in with every other program headed for the chopping block as 
part of our institution's budget cutting fever.
  Well, I am here today to say that national service is not a 
Government-run social program. And that is the point that the Speaker 
and some of national service's critics misunderstand.
  It is not a program but a new social invention created to provide 
access to the American dream of higher education and to help create the 
ethic of service and civic obligation in today's young people.
  Under national service, young Americans receive a reduction in their 
student debt, or a voucher for higher education, in exchange for full- 
or part-time community service. Service projects are driven by the 
choices of local nonprofits organized around one of four broad themes--
public health, the environment, public safety, or education.
  National service began as a concept with the Democratic Leadership 
Council and other Democrats like myself in the 1980's. But its purpose 
was not born of political gamesmanship or partisan advantage. It was 
designed to address two of the most pressing needs that our country 
faces. One, how can students pay off their student debt; and how can we 
create a sense of voluntarism.
  The first is the issue of student indebtedness and access to higher 
education. Most college graduates today face their first mortgage the 
day they leave college--it is called their student loans. That debt 
often forces them to make career choices oriented strictly to getting 
them financially fit for duty.
  Worse yet, for many the high cost of higher education simply denies 
them access to college at all.
  By providing a post-service benefit, national service members can 
ease their student debt, or accrue savings that will help them go to 
school. It is not an entitlement, and it is not a hand out.
  Educational benefits are linked to work service. Participants are 
eligible only when they have finished their work service commitment.
  The second problem national service is designed to address is more 
idealistic. It is how to instill in young Americans what de Tocqueville 
called the habits of the heart. To address the sharp drop over the last 
two decades in the number of Americans who volunteer in their own 
communities, a fact representative of Americans disinvesting in those 
social institutions which helped build our country.
  Bob Putnam, a Professor at Harvard, has written an article called 
``Bowling Alone.'' He says more people bowl today than a decade ago but 
few belong to bowling leagues. So, Senator Mikulski, what does that 
have to do with national service?
  The point is bowling alone is a metaphor for the way Americans have 
come to view civic involvement and citizenship. There has a been an 
absolute decline in developing community involvement. People have less 
time available because many households have two wage earners instead of 
one. They are more mobile. We have a society that is more influenced by 
TV. And they are also less committed. There is a serious lack of a 
sense of civic obligation.
  Fewer people attend PTA, groups like Red Cross and the Boy Scouts 
have fewer volunteers.
  My point in saying this is that national service is an idea that 
promotes exactly the values that the Republican leader wishes to 
instill. The fact that we should not rely on Government, that there 
should be a role for nonprofit organizations, that there should be for 
every opportunity, an obligation; for every right, a responsibility.
 And that is what national service is about. It is not coercive. Nobody 
is forced to get into the national service program. But I will tell you 
what they do. Their lives are significantly changed by it and their 
communities are significantly changed by it.

  Young American men no longer have the shared experience of military 
service that served for the men of my generation as a rite of passage 
into adulthood. Where they learned that there was more to being a good 
citizen than just staying out of trouble. That instead, civic 
responsibility meant uniting with people of all different walks of life 
for a common purpose to help people help themselves; to be part of an 
American effort bigger than themselves.
  National service is the latest in a long series of social inventions 
we have created to help provide access to higher education. We created 
night schools to teach immigrants English. We created the GI bill for 
returning veterans, and we invented community colleges to bring higher 
education close to home at a modest cost.
  The argument that national service is coerced voluntarism is a knee-
jerk statement that belies the facts. I chaired the Appropriations 
Subcommittee which has funded national service in the past. In the 
first 2 years of the Clinton administration, no one coerced anyone to 
participate. Instead, people were knocking down the doors to join.
  Two facts make this point. First of all, there are more people who 
want to participate than there are opportunities.
  In national service's first 2 years, about 1,500 organizations 
applied for funds. Only 300 were selected because of lack of funds. 
That is a selection rate of just 20 percent--a lower selection rate 
than peer-reviewed research grants at either the National Science 
[[Page S987]] Foundation or the National Institutes of Health.
  Second, in the current fiscal year, we provided enough funds to get 
about 23,000 people participating in full- or part-time national 
service. Yet since the President launched his call for a season of 
service, the Corporation for National Service has received calls from 
nearly 200,000 different persons wanting to participating in the 
program. So just 1 in 10 who have wanted to voluntarily participate 
have been able to do so.
  Now some discount the kind of work undertaken through national 
service. They say it is trivial, or unnecessary, or even irrelevant. 
But I can tell you that in my own State of Maryland, national service 
is making a difference--not with fancy bumper sticker programs or 
activities that simply touch the surface of what is needed.
  For example, 30 national service volunteers in Montgomery County are 
working with cops as victim assistance advocates for 1,000 senior 
citizens. They help teach crime prevention techniques and organize 
neighborhood watch activities. They work every day to make Montgomery 
County, MD, a safer place to live.
  National service is helping senior citizens avoid crime by teaching 
crime prevention, organizing neighborhood watchdogs and rural, urban. 
In suburban areas they have service corps related to conservation. They 
are rehabilitating houses for low-income families. When we were hit by 
tornadoes, the National Service Corps moved in and helped families help 
themselves to be able to pull themselves out of the tragedy that 
affected them. There are many criticisms of national service, and 
Senator Grassley raised a few related to bureaucracy. I do think we 
need to make sure that bureaucracy is kept at a minimum.
  Mr. President, regardless about how one feels about it as an 
organization, let us not lose sight of the mission. We need new social 
inventions in this country to take us into the 21st century just like 
we need new technological inventions. We have continued creating social 
inventions that have provided access to the American dream around 
owning a home and acquiring higher education. In terms of acquiring 
education, we in the United States of America invented night school so 
immigrants could be able to learn English, citizenship, and move ahead. 
No other country in the world had it until we invented it. There is the 
GI bill that said ``thank you'' to Americans who made sacrifices in 
World War II, and part of that was to be able to have a VA mortgage and 
a VA opportunity to seek higher education. We even invented the 
community college system to make sure that you did not have to go away 
to be able to learn.
  National service is an opportunity. It is an organization right now 
that is providing volunteer slots of 20,000 people a year to actually 
work hands on in their own community, primarily working through 
nonprofits and enabling themselves to pay off their student debt, 
helping the community. Mr. President, I believe their lives will be 
changed. I believe that when the voucher part of this program is over 
they will go on volunteering the rest of their lives.
  I think it is an important program. I hope that before we go around 
attacking some of these programs that we take a look at their mission. 
If we have to fine tune the administrative aspects of it, so be it. But 
I believe national service is an important part of our national agenda 
and should have bipartisan support.
  In rural, urban, and suburban places around Maryland, the Maryland 
service corps--like the Maryland Conservation Corps, Civic Works in 
Baltimore, and Community Year in Montgomery County--are teaming up to 
rehabilitate houses for low-income families.
  These are but two examples of hundreds of ones that are taking place 
across America in 49 of the 50 States. They are fighting to make a 
difference in people's lives, 1 day at a time, one person at a time. 
Because in today's culture of mass marketing, mass production, and mass 
advertising, we need to teach every young American that he or she can 
make a difference. Whether they are from a middle-class suburb, a tough 
inner-city neighborhood, or a rural county that's economy is driven by 
the labor of the land.
  Earlier today, one of my colleagues alluded to a General Accounting 
Office study that I initiated when I chaired the VA-HUD Appropriations 
Subcommittee. It is a routine review of the administrative costs of 
national service activities designed to help us improve it where 
possible, and guarantee as much money goes into service activities 
instead of overhead.
  The fact that we began it in the last Congress demonstrates the long-
standing desire of those who support the program to make it bipartisan, 
and focused on results, not rhetoric. It doesn't indicate any evidence 
that this initiative is off-track or funds wasteful service efforts.
  To suggest otherwise is simply to let one's rhetoric get ahead of the 
facts.
  So, I for one, look forward to the GAO's findings and intend to use 
them to improve national service, not undermine it.
  As the new Republican majority takes shape in both Houses of 
Congress, I hope that they keep an open mind on national service. 
Rather than criticizing it, national service seems to be the kind of 
program they should like.
  Service choices are selected on the basis of merit, not political 
muscle. And those choices are made at the State and local level, not by 
bureaucrats in Washington.
  It rewards the kind of values like sweat equity and hard work that 
are the heart of American family life. It does not identify with 
victims, but instead calls people to self-responsibility--by helping 
not just yourself, but others too.
  What better way to help a young woman on welfare but to help her 
understand that she can not only receive help, but provide it to others 
as well.
  Benefits are earned through work, not a Government handout. There is 
no entitlement.
  And national service promotes the kind of social cohesion--rich and 
poor, black and white--best achieved by people working together, a 
theme the new Speaker outlines so eloquently in his maiden speech as 
Speaker.
  I worked for many years as a social worker and community organizer in 
Baltimore. I learned from that experience more than I have ever learned 
from memos and briefings in Washington. I am a better Senator because 
of what I learned from the people and the communities I worked with 
every day. The people who work in national service are also learning 
and being changed by their experience too.
  It was 35 years ago that President Kennedy challenged Americans to 
ask not what their country could do for them, but what they could do 
for their country. In that spirit, I will join the President and my 
colleagues on both sides of the aisle in fighting to preserve national 
service in the days and months ahead.
  I yield the floor under the unanimous-consent agreement that we had 
agreed to.


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