One overlooked aspect of the horrid Republican budget is the defunding of the only national service program that this country has: Americorps (http://www.sacbee.com/...). This program was started by President Clinton in 1993 under the National and Community Service Trust Act and created three programs: Americorps State and National, Americorps VISTA, and Americorps NCCC. Americorps VISTA is specifically for fighting poverty while NCCC is the National Civilian Conservation Corps – which works on improving infrastructure in this country. Currently these employ 85,000 people who live on barely anything (they are mandated to receive stipends at the poverty line) and yet do amazing work. They work in everything from teaching children to connecting low income people to technology, to working in large non-profits like the Red Cross and Habitat for Humanity.
The Republican budget cuts this entire program. Not modifies it or reviews operations, but cuts the entire thing just like they are trying to do with PBS and NPR. They tried the same thing in 1995 when they took control of Congress (http://www.nytimes.com/...). Then as in now, the logic is similar: we want to stick it to Democrats and other causes that look left leaning (who’d have ever thought that helping poor people was partisan but I guess this is where the Republicans have dragged us). Cut taxes for rich people? Patriot. Help poor people? Communist.
Save Americorps. Save our national service program. Save 85,000 jobs and thousands more of community members who are benefitting from their work. The Senate still has the power to change this.
Find your Senator: http://whoismyrepresentative.com/
http://www.change.org/...
http://www.americorpsalums.org/...