[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 12 (Friday, January 20, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1261-S1262]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            NATIONAL SERVICE

  Mr. NUNN. Mr. President, I rise today to discuss the national service 
program which has been the subject of a good bit of discussion in 
recent media accounts and which President Clinton addressed this last 
week.
  From the outset, I want to make it clear that I join President 
Clinton in expressing my continued strong support of the concept of 
national service. The passage of the national service bill in the last 
Congress was an event that I, along with a number of my colleagues, 
looked forward to for many years. Since President Clinton signed the 
legislation into law on September 21, 1993, thousands of Americans have 
served our country in projects which range from teaching school in 
inner-city neighborhoods to preventing destruction of lands along our 
Nation's rivers.
  The case for this initiative depends on understanding that it is 
uniquely a program that offers a triple investment in the future 
productive capacity of our people and our communities--first of all, in 
the service performed; the service experience, No. 2; and the 
postservice benefit for our young people, No. 3. I know that the word 
``investment'' has been much abused in debate on the Senate floor in 
recent years, and for some it is just a code word for Government 
spending. We must not, however, become so cynical that we cannot see a 
real investment with a real payoff when it is staring us in the face.
  The idea for this investment came from recognition that many 
Americans have, for the first time, perhaps, in our history, forgotten 
the relationship between rights and responsibilities. We often see 
reports in the news media about various groups proclaiming that this 
Government service or that Government service is a right. We are so 
often reminded of the rights all Americans should enjoy that we often 
lose sight of the other side of the same coin, and that is the 
responsibilities that we must share in order to make these rights 
possible. Just as we have rights to freedom, to life, liberty and the 
pursuit of happiness, those sacred rights carry with them equally 
sacred responsibilities. The National Service Program was created to 
provide young Americans with opportunities to fulfill that obligation 
to give something back to their country and to their communities.
  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who dedicated his life to the cause of 
civil rights and whose birthday we celebrated this past Monday, 
understood that only through assuming responsibilities that accompany 
our rights can we help ourselves. He said in the last Sunday morning 
sermon before his assassination:

       Human progress never rolls in on the wheels of 
     inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men 
     willing to be co-workers with God, and without this hard 
     work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social 
     stagnation. So we must help time and realize that the time is 
     always ripe to do right.

  National Service provides young people a means to meet the challenge 
to do right while expanding their own horizons and building opportunity 
for their futures.
  Critics have tried to attack the National Service Program in a number 
of different ways. During the debate on the authorizing legislation, we 
heard cries of how many more Pell grants we could fund with the money, 
or how many more job training programs we could fund with the money. 
Though these criticisms are valid as far as they go, they almost 
inevitably lose sight of the fact that National Service does not exist 
for the purpose of simply providing student aid or even job training. 
National Service exists primarily to provide service. And if the 
program is not providing service, then it does not deserve to exist.
 A good analogy is our Nation's Armed Forces. We do not maintain Armed 
Forces in order to provide valuable skills and develop good character 
in young men and women. Rather, Armed Forces personnel develop skills 
and character in the military as they carry out their primary mission 
of providing our Nation's security.

  The same is true of national service. Would critics have the Senate 
disregard the benefits to society of national service participants 
providing employment counseling and tutoring to homeless people in 
Atlanta? Should we ignore the benefits of the first-time immunization 
of 33,000 children in Fort Worth, TX, in one month which was carried 
out by those serving in the national service program?
  I could go on and on with the kind of service being provided. That is 
the true test of national service. Are we really serving people and 
helping communities? Considering the benefits national service provides 
at the community level, it is difficult to see why there are so many 
objections to this program. Indeed, given the debates we have heard on 
unfunded mandates and we continue to hear that on legislation in this 
body, I would think that our colleagues would agree that national 
service represents the type of program that we ought to support.
  National service is not a Federal mandate for any specific type of 
service, nor does it require that communities participate at all. 
National service gives communities and service organizations and young 
people the chance, voluntarily, to identify and perform the kind of 
service which best meets their local needs with the Federal Government 
providing the funding. So it is almost the opposite of a Government 
mandate.
  At the same time, it provides meaningful work for young people 
addressing real problems without Federal micromanagement. This real 
work for real value will ensure a strong payback for the taxpayers' 
dollar. In the process, national service instills in young people the 
strong traditional values of hard work and responsibility. They learn 
those values because they are serving. It is not a program to teach 
those values. It is a program where the values are learned because of 
service rendered.
   [[Page S1262]] As for the claim that national service is--quoting 
one of the critics--``coerced volunteerism,'' I would suggest that 
critics ask any of the more than 200,000 people who requested 
applications for last year's AmeriCorps Program or the 20,000 that were 
selected and are now serving, whether they were coerced. National 
service is not coercion any more than was the Montgomery GI bill which 
provides educational benefits for hundreds of thousands of young 
Americans who serve and have served in our Nation's All-Volunteer 
Force.
  Instead, like the Montgomery GI bill, national service is an 
opportunity, an opportunity that young people all over America have 
said they want. Nothing is more evident of that than the overwhelming 
number of applications. I think we will see even more of the 
applications in the years to come, assuming this program continues.
  As for the benefits of service, and to me this must be the way we 
judge the program more than any other judgment, although there are, 
really, as I said, three parts to the program, service is the No. 1 
part. In my State alone the excellent works that have been performed by 
these young people is very impressive. In Georgia, national service 
participants are working in Atlanta area schools as teaching 
assistants, tutors, and mentors. They are aiding police in developing a 
community-oriented police program in Albany, GA. They are helping 
create an emergency 911 network in Douglas and Coffee County. They are 
identifying local environmental programs in Decatur, GA, and developing 
plans to engage youth in solving them. They are tutoring hundreds and 
thousands of young people every day in elementary school. They are also 
in some of the rural areas that I visited. They do not have any foreign 
language teachers in the schools there and they have found that with 
the immigration that is growing in our State and other States, these 
young people who are in school that cannot speak English need help. In 
many cases, in a couple of the rural communities, that help is coming 
from national service participants who have a second language and who 
are able to be the only ones in the community that can really 
communicate with the newly arrived legal immigrants in our school.
  All of these efforts are duplicated in national service programs 
nationwide. From aiding the American Red Cross and providing food and 
clothing for California flood victims to building homes for needy 
families in the poorest sections of Miami, with Habitat for Humanity.
  In conclusion, Mr. President, national service provides a triple 
payback in valuable service to the community. Higher skills and lower 
debts for our young people for attending colleges or getting advanced 
education after high school and a much stronger sense that we are all 
in the American enterprise together, bound by mutual respect and mutual 
obligation.
  In the Peace Corps Program in my State the participants begin each 
day with a chant announcing their readiness to serve, to earn, and to 
learn. That, Mr. President, is the most eloquent summary of the concept 
of national service that I think we can offer: To serve, to earn, and 
to learn.
  I urge all Senators to listen to our young people, to visit these 
programs, to make sure that the criticism of the programs--which is 
welcome--make sure it is constructive, to make sure we look at whether 
we are really getting service in the communities where they are 
serving, rather than simply oppose this program as another governmental 
program.
  I urge all Senators to particularly talk to our young people, listen 
to them, and see what they say about what they are doing in serving and 
earning and learning and continuing to give them a chance in this 
regard. There is room for improvement in the program. There is room for 
constructive criticism. There is room, perhaps, to even critique the 
program in a way that would affect the budget. In my view, blind 
opposition to this exciting concept is simply not the way to go at this 
point in time.
  I think the main measure must be whether we are getting service from 
these young people and whether they are helping the communities, 
helping young people, helping those in need. It is my hope that if this 
program works and I believe it is working, that it will be viewed in 
the future as not simply an addition to the way we deliver services to 
those in need in our country and in our communities but rather in lieu 
of some of the existing programs.
  I can think of no better way to deliver social services in this 
Nation to those in need. We are going to continue to have people in 
need. We are going to continue to have community demands that cannot be 
met with nominal funding. I can think of no better way than unleashing 
the energy, enthusiasm, and idealism of tens of thousands of America's 
young people in addressing these critical problems. To me this is the 
way we ought to begin thinking about shaping our social services.
  At this point in time this program is in addition to the existing 
programs. We should look at it more and more as a substitute to some of 
the programs and a supplement to others.
  I thank the Chair. I know the Senator from New Hampshire would like 
to speak. I yield the floor.
  Mr. SMITH addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire.

                          ____________________