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Focused Patriotism
As your Representative, I will support legislation mandating School-Based Service as a Requirement for High School Graduation. I feel that every student in America should perform some level of community-based service prior to high school graduation. Integrated with academics, school-based service will give every student in America an opportunity to gain new knowledge and skills while contributing to their communities and their own sense of pride. I believe that States and schools districts should have the flexibility to tailor their individual programs and requirements to meet their community’s immediate needs all programs must be locally designed. I believe we must increase the Size of the Peace Corps. From the Berlin Air Lift to efforts in the wake of the Indian Ocean tsunami, America has long led humanitarian efforts around the world for generations. Yet too often, the only face of America the world sees is through their evening news. As a result, our standing in the world and in turn our security has been diminished. The Peace Corps has presented the world with the best of what America has to offer a kind and generous nation that sends their best and brightest to help build communities around the world. As your Representative, I will advocate increasing the number of Peace Corps volunteers, expanding the number of countries in which volunteers are stationed, and providing opportunities for Peace Corps volunteers to serve in their local communities when they return home. I also feel we must dramatically increase the number of AmeriCorps members and immediately raise the amount of the Education Award. Currently 70,000 Americans serve our nation as AmeriCorps members. Every day these young people meet the pressing needs of local communities throughout the United States. We should build on the demonstrated success of AmeriCorps by growing the program and by immediately increasing the education award from $4,725 to $6,655 to reflect the skyrocketing cost of tuition. Thereafter, the award should be annually indexed to the rise in 4-year public tuition rates. Congress should also create the Rapid Response Reserve Corps that has been introduced. National service programs have a proud tradition of working with local and federal governments to respond to natural disasters and national tragedies. Unfortunately, absent coordination, many volunteers who want to serve cannot be well leveraged or deployed. A National Service Reserves Corps with a focus on disaster preparedness and response will ensure that communities are prepared for disasters, so that immediate needs are met after disaster strikes, and that volunteers are leveraged and coordinated in longer-term reconstruction phases. Building upon the successes of the Peace Corps Crisis Corps, a Rapid Response Recovery Corps will utilize 21st Century technology to mobilize national service program alumni, as well as retired military and National Guard personnel, to respond to disasters in accordance with their training and experience. Such an initiative would make funding available to develop systems needed to ensure Corps Alumni are trained, available and ready to be deployed to emergency managers at the local, state, and national level when needed; provide living and travel expenses, as well as a base of support, to those called back into service; and provide ongoing assistance with rebuilding efforts. This type of program should train and leverage 50,000 National Service Alumni that can be deployed for 30-day periods in response to emergency need. Corps volunteers would not replace existing emergency or support personnel. There must also be no job displacement. As your Representative, I will work to build Corporate-Community Partnerships. A career should not prevent busy, but otherwise civic-minded Americans from serving. I believe that by encouraging employers to offer time off for volunteering, we can ensure that a career never stands in the way of serving one’s community. Through Congress, the federal government should offer tax credits to employers who provide their employees with at least 40 hours of paid time-off to do community service every year. Employers must be reimbursed at a rate of at minimum 50% of salaries paid while on community service leave. In addition to the tax credit, employers will benefit from the improved skills and morale of their workforce and their enhanced image in the community. By offering tax credits in exchange for time off for service, Congress will encourage more employers to become better stewards of their communities. Congress must expand the National Senior Volunteer Corps. Nearly one-half million seniors participate in the three federally-funded programs known collectively as the National Senior Volunteer Corps the Foster Grandparent Program, RSVP, and the Senior Companion Program. Together they provide opportunities for all seniors, regardless of their economic means, to serve their communities in ways that utilize their individual skills and wisdom. While serving, volunteers enjoy the mental and physical health benefits that accrue from helping others and feeling productive. In Congress, I will work to expand these programs to ensure that the 77 million baby boomers, retiring in the coming years, are provided with ample opportunity to pass on their skills and talents. Congress must also create a National Education Corps. National Service programs have been particularly effective at supporting students and schools. Building on that foundation, an Education Corps would leverage existing service programs like AmeriCorps and VISTA to focus additional national service resources on low-performing schools and school districts. Members of a specialized Education Corps could: Develop service-learning courses to engage and inspire students; organize extracurricular activities and coach sports teams; support technology programs; help students and families plan for and apply to college; help ESL students learn English; and support after school programs. An Education Corps will engage additional K-12 students in school-based service-learning, engage additional universities in Learn and Serve America Higher Education, and support thousands of additional AmeriCorps and AmeriCorps *VISTA members who wish to work in low-performing schools. There must be no job displacement is such a program. |
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