The President’s Volunteerism Initiative: Nice Idea, Poor Execution
Politicians, as I noted recently, will say nearly anything to secure your vote, so it’s best to take any and all public pronouncements as little more than campaign chatter. For a painful case in point, see today’s New York Times, where Sheryl Gay Stolberg wrote that President Bush’s 2002 State of the Union address offered lofty but unfulfilled rhetoric about creating “a new culture of responsibility.” Promising to expand both AmeriCorps and the Peace Corps, the President created a new White House arm called the USA Freedom Corps to coordinate those efforts and promote volunteerism, but the initiative soon fell by the wayside:
[A]s Mr. Bush prepares for his final State of the Union address, on Monday night, the Freedom Corps stands as a reminder of how presidential dreams can collide with Washington reality, and how promises made with fanfare can sometimes fade away. Today, some of the Freedom Corps initiative’s biggest early boosters, including several former Bush administration officials, say it wound up a disappointment.
This is not to beat up on President Bush; the next politician who can fully actualize every proposal announced in a major speech will be the first. It is meant, instead, as a reminder to nonprofits, whom government officials love to stroke, that the efforts will yield more results coming from the bottom up instead of the top down. | 501(c)
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