Posted on 03/23/2009 8:20:15 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
The Senate agreed Monday to take up legislation to triple the size of the AmeriCorps program and open up opportunities for more people to serve their communities.
Lawmakers voted 74-14 to move to the legislation that would expand AmeriCorps from its current 75,000 positions to 250,000 over the course of eight years. Sixty votes were needed to bring the bill to the floor. The measure is expected to come up for a final vote in the Senate sometime this week.
Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., who is being treated for brain cancer, made a rare appearance on the Senate floor to vote for the bill that he co-sponsored with Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah. Kennedy's office said he is expected to be on Capitol Hill until Congress goes on recess April 4.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
WTF is going on here???????
74-14?????
I am speechless.
They go to Washington DC and it’s all about them. Well, they have NO idea how angry we (the common folk) are! They are going to be SHOCKED!
Orrin Hatch you’re out!
Way to lead the charge there, McConnell.
Well 4 billion went to ACORN! So this certainly isn’t surprising!
Do we have details who voted for and who voted against?
This is way worse than I thought.....The Kenyan and the Clinton SKANK must have FBI files and assorted information on most of these Repewbikans. Disgusting and doesn’t bode well for peace in this country.
We’re in serious trouble. The wussy Republicans collapse.
No leadership willing to stand against the socialist tyranny. Don’t seem to be concerned that the country is under seige from the communists.
The Republicans seem content to become extinct. They are not conservatives, Dark years ahead for this country.
All 14 Nays were Republicans. Thank God.
I knew this was Asspress by the complete lack of facts, but man am I getting tired of Kennedy’s “rare” appearances.
Only 14.
It makes me want to weep. Only 14.
Is the GOP isane? They are clueless about young Mugabe!
No surprise. They're almost all bought and paid for.
What is with Hatch?!! Where is Rush, Hannity, Savage, Levin, Beck and Mitch McConnell? Steele?
Rush needs to get out there on this because he will light up Hatch’s switchboard. The GOP is insane?
I am speechless.
We were designed for the sacraments, and a need to serve and worship. We are hard wired to do it. The first thing that popped into my head when I read this was, this is because the people are not involved in their churches and the social justice opportunities they provide. It is the same reason we need psychiatrists; we have stopped going to confession, but our NEED for confession has not diminished. We have stopped going to church, but our NEED to worship has not diminish, so we worship money, celebrities ,sports figures, and now presidents. We have traded love for sex in confusion thinking that one is the other and therefore wander aimlessly from one partner to another seeking the love we so desperately crave.
Human nature is divine by origin; we are made in the image and likeness of God. Because God is the same yesterday, today, and always, we cannot change how we are made. The difference is in where and what we look to to fufill the need to do these things we have written on our heart.
Loving God is the only way our hungry hearts and souls can be satisfied. Looking to man or his creations always falls short of the mark, and leaves us thirsting and never ever satisfied. We may feel better for a time, but it is like getting drunk; you always feel worse the next day, and need that drink to try and feel better. So Sad parents failed their children so miserably in their quest to be their friends instead of their teachers/role models.
Now we will serve man instead of God for the benefit of the Government. It will be mandatory, and take away the last vestage of good in a world that so horribly needs a good deed in the name of love, not as required conscription......
Hey, they're Russians but you get the idea.
The Americorps was sold to us saying it will bring the “success” of the Peace Corps home.
The Peace Corps is a giant negative and a blot on the American reputation. Nothing wins friends like sending college educated hippies to do “hands on” work in countries that have a labor surplus.
It’s a vote to have a vote (a vote to bring it to the floor). There probably are not 74 “aye” votes but I’m guessing it will still pass.
Hatch must be getting senile. One of the best arguments for term limits is that after stewing in Washington for 25 years, these geezers love their Senate Club more than their constituents and sometimes more than their country.
Is this list material?
The Americorps will be guarding “Lenin” not the Tomb of the Unknown soldier so the photo does not fit.
Well I guess you straightened me out.
Don’t you see what they are doing? They are passing so many outrages, the people won’t have time to respond to one controversial vote before they are hit with another. Shock and awe my friends.
They will destroy this country before the midterms.
Don’t you see what they are doing? They are passing so many outrages, the people won’t have time to respond to one controversial vote before they are hit with another. Shock and awe my friends.
They know this is their one shot and they are going to make good use of it. By the time it’s over, the people won’t know what hit them.
I sent the following to my Congress Critter and Both Senators...
I see that 74 sitting Senators are willing to address a better than Tripling of the size of Americorps.
I worry that this is a move to Indoctrinate, rather help or educate. If only groups like the Teachers Unions, Acorn and the U.N. get to design and hire; it will be Indoctrination!
YOU can, easily, test this. Try adding a line to fund Giving every Americorps enrollee a copy of Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged”, or Michael Crichton’s “State of Fear”. Be willing to fall back to JUST distributing DONATED copies, along with the other donated stuff that enlistees get given.
I’ll wager that The Pelosi/Reid LEFT will not allow even that, to go into this Bill.
In their eyes, “Education” and Indoctrination are interchangeable terms. They label William Ayers an “Educator”.
“What is wrong with Senator Orrin Hatch?!”
He’s a union lover (and member) and a socialist!
Instead of tripleing it they should eliminate it!
Look Who Supports Americorps
by Michelle Malkin (January 20, 2001)
Where have all the fiscal conservatives gone? Have these Republicans forgotten the countless examples of AmeriCorps-sponsored projects that paid participants to lobby for left-wing causes? Like the tax-subsidized AmeriCorps volunteers who lobbied against the voter-approved California initiative to put violent criminals in prison for life after a third violent crime. Or the recruits who showed their community spirit by disrupting Republican political events while working for the liberal advocacy group, ACORN.
Or the AmeriCorps foot soldiers who pressed for rent control, expanded federal housing subsidies, and enrollment of more women in the Women, Infants, and Children welfare program. Or the AmeriCorps enrollees who distributed low-flush toilets as part of a government campaign.
What about the millions of dollars that were wasted during the program’s first three years, when nearly 3,000 recruits were sent to do busy work for bureaucrats at the Department of Justice, the Department of Interior, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Legal Services Corporation, and the National Endowment for the Arts?
Citizens Against Government Waste, the Washington, D.C.-based watchdog group, has vigilantly tracked such stomach-churning examples since AmeriCorps’ inception. In a recent report, the group concluded that Clinton’s pet cause “has become a showcase for the waste, abuse and cynical political manipulation inherent in many federally subsidized civic enterprises.” Both private and public investigators have deemed AmeriCorps’ financial books “unauditable.” AmeriCorps’ own inspector general documented cases in which recruits received grants for working at McDonald’s, not working at all, and while incarcerated in prison. Nearly half of the participants drop out before their service term is over.
Nevertheless, government spending on AmeriCorps is up 248 percent since its creation. And there’s no end in sight.
http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=155
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