Coburn Neuters Symbolic AmeriCorps Resolution, Attacks Volunteer Program As ‘Ineffective’
Coburn Neuters Symbolic AmeriCorps Resolution, Attacks Volunteer Program As ‘Ineffective’
President Bill Clinton created AmeriCorps in 1993 “as a kind of domestic counterpart to the Peace Corps.” Since then, more than 200,000 Americans have served in AmeriCorps, providing volunteer assistance most recently in tornado-devasted Greensburg, KS, where they were among the first volunteers dispatched to the area. Seventy-two percent of volunteers return to work in their communities after their service with AmeriCorps ends.
Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), however, would rather gut the program. Last week, Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) introduced a Senate resolution “honoring the accomplishments of AmeriCorps.” Previously passed by the House, the symbolic resolution received bipartisan support in the Senate as well.
As The Politico reported, “Coburn took the unusual step of putting a hold on the senatorial platitude, but told its backers that he would consent to it as long as he could make some edits.” In his edits, Coburn neutered any language praising AmeriCorps, removing phrases such as “highly effective” and “significant accomplishments.” He attacked the program, saying it has “been ineffective in demonstrating results, controlling costs, [and] ensuring that AmeriCorps does not duplicate other federal efforts”:
Coburn has attempted to gut AmeriCorps before, introducing an amendment in 2006 to kill a proposal to fund the Corporation for National and Community Service, AmeriCorps’ umbrella organization, which would have expanded their volunteer base in post-Katrina New Orleans. Throughout his term, President Bush has also slashed funding to the volunteer program.
See Coburn’s handwritten edits to the resolution HERE.
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Of course Coburn doesn’t like AmeriCorps…it’s an organization dedicated to taking money from the overstuffed wallets of the elite and using it to help people desperately in need of assistance (read:non-elite).
May 17th, 2007 at 8:09 pmCoburn’s an utter moron.
He’s the guy who said this: “…lesbianism is so rampant in some of the schools in southeast Oklahoma that they’ll only let one girl go to the bathroom.â€
May 17th, 2007 at 8:11 pmI would call him a jackass, but that would be to cast aspersions on innocent animals who are not malicious and have done nothing wrong.
May 17th, 2007 at 8:12 pmReality Check–
May 17th, 2007 at 8:19 pmSpeaking of innocent animals, don’t you think it’s about time the Repugs get rid of their elephant mascot & replace it with the more appropriate Pig At The Trough ?
As Jon Stewart might say: What a dick.
May 17th, 2007 at 8:22 pmPerhaps he might be asking the same questions of everything bushco has done. Perhaps he had plans for the few bucks tossed to AmeriCorps in some wonderful earmark for one of his supporters.
May 17th, 2007 at 8:27 pmAnd these are the bastards who are compassionate and conservative?? Wow. I cant wait for the 2008 election…435-0 in the House and 70-30 in the Senate….D of course…along with Al in the White House….these creeps get what they deserve
May 17th, 2007 at 8:43 pmwhat IS is with senators from oklahoma…? must be something in the water…
And, yes, I DO take it personally
May 17th, 2007 at 8:47 pmRecall that the American Taliban Doctor Coburn from Oklahoma alerted his fellow Sooners to the threat of lesbians run amok in the their high schools. “Lesbianism is so rampant in some of the schools in southeast Oklahoma that they’ll only let one girl go to the bathroom. Now think about it. Think about that issue. How is it that that’s happened to us?”
Coburn, an obstetrician, has said he favors the death penalty for abortion providers and called state legislators “a bunch of crapheads.” The good doctor, who called his race against Brad Carson a choice between “good and evil”, also has been accused of Medicare fraud and sterilizing a woman without her permission.
May 17th, 2007 at 8:52 pmCoburn’s thesis seems to be that any govt program that supplants expensive private sector outsourced efforts, even if done by volunteers, is evil per se. I guess he’s mad that Blackwater teams weren’t hired in adequate numbers, instead of those darned Do Gooders who might know more about assisting communities in emergencies than to shoot first and ask questions later. Another chance missed to pluck the public.
May 17th, 2007 at 8:53 pmI’m amazed at the arrogance of these bastards. Their agenda is “Destroy America”, we’re taking over and we don’t care what the voters say because our only allegience is to our party.
May 17th, 2007 at 9:27 pmBut…. if he guts Americorp, isn’t he essentially assuring it duplicates what all the other federal agencies are doing to help those in need.. namely, NOTHING! It’s so hard to hold onto my non-violent principles sometimes.
May 17th, 2007 at 9:51 pm#5 — you’re right.
May 17th, 2007 at 10:04 pmRepublicans are NO longer supposed to control the Senate, so the Democratic Senators should have told Coburn to go straight to Hell.
He had no right to edit the AmeriCorps Resolution. Mikulski must learn to stand up to GOPer thugs, or retire from the Senate so another Democrat can face up to swill like Coburn.
May 17th, 2007 at 10:27 pmThe man is complete f*cking idiot.
May 17th, 2007 at 10:29 pmSomeone ought to neuter Tom Coburn. That little prick has not done anything affirmative since he was elected.
May 17th, 2007 at 11:13 pmGive credit where its deserved. This creature carries water very well
May 17th, 2007 at 11:31 pmfor the wealthy people in his district. And does the very best he can to
stay in Goose, er ah Lockstep with the reThuglican party.
Does Mikulski have nothing better to do in the Senate than to write meaningless resolutions? Does she think she was elected to the student council rather than the Senate? When are the Democrats going to get around to some real policy changes instead of goofy stuff like this?
May 17th, 2007 at 11:37 pmI’m surprised the program has even survived this long. It kiss of funding death is right there for everyone to see; introduced by Clinton. Introduced by George Sr heck its budget would have been doubled.
May 18th, 2007 at 12:27 amCan we turn Oklahoma into a sheet of glass, please?
May 18th, 2007 at 12:46 amOver half of the voters in Oklahoma must be extremely wealthy, or they must assume that a natural disaster will never strike in their state. Of course, Hurricane Rita struck Texas to the south and a devastating tornado recently hit Greensburg, Kansas to the north, but something similar could never strike a state of righteous people who’d vote politicians like Coburn and Imhofe into national office. And if their National Guard troops and equipment are in Iraq and the AmericaCorps has been gutted, I’m sure that the taxpayer-funded faith-based organizations will fill the void, just like they did for Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Oklahomans better be ready to call James Dobson, Pat Robertson, etc., should a similar calamity visit their state.
May 18th, 2007 at 12:47 amThe Jimmy, do you have nothing better to do write meaningless posts on TP?
May 18th, 2007 at 12:48 amcurmudgeon, they are not wealthy, they are stupid.
May 18th, 2007 at 12:48 amOklahoma loves them some Southern Baptist morals. Nuff said.
May 18th, 2007 at 12:49 am#2
May 18th, 2007 at 1:12 amI challenge you not as my reads here prove your integrity, sincerity,intelligence, and humanity. I would like to bring this quote you mention to the attention of the GSLB student organization at my school. Can you please provide any links. Thanks!
Although I didn’t author post #2, by copying the quote verbatim, and then pasting it into an advanced search option, specifying “the exact phrase”, I was able to find well over a hundred publications that published Coburn’s quote, including FOX, CBS and the Washington Post. Good luck!
May 18th, 2007 at 2:10 amFollow the link and print a copy of Coburn’s edits and show it to people. Citizens need to understand what being a Republican really means. Here it is, in their own words, for all to see. Show it to the people who say there is no difference between the parties. Then show them how much our country has spent on the war in Iraq and the pictures from Abu Garib Hadditha and say, “this is what they’d rather spend our money on.”
May 18th, 2007 at 8:10 amWhy do we need AmeriCorps when we have FEMA?
I understand they are doing a “heck of a job!”
May 18th, 2007 at 10:15 amCoburn is a proctologists dream. He could probe every one of Coburns orifices without deviating from his specialty. The man is nothing less than excretory perfection.
May 18th, 2007 at 11:14 amGo Coburn!
AmeriCorps is just a bunch of pork barreled garbage.
May 18th, 2007 at 12:54 pmWell, what exactly has Americorp done well? These aren’t volunteers, we as taxpayers pay them. the entire program needs to be dissolved. I actually agree with Coburn.
May 18th, 2007 at 1:24 pmCan any of you provide a single independent study that illustrates the effectiveness of this program? No you can’t. No one can–not even the program itself. If it is so great, prove it.
Good intentions alone are not enough of a reason to divert my tax dollars to unconstitutional pet projects with no proven results.
Plus, doesn’t any rational person here see the irony of federally mandated “volunteering.” Why in hell does it take millions of other people’ money in order for you lazy people to volunteer? Aren’t we missing the point? People have volunteered and created on their own all sorts of innovative ways to help our brothers and sisters BUT without stealing from someone else’s pocket books to do it. You should all be ashamed of yourselves.
So much for not legislating morality. But if you lefties want to do it, at least legislative morality with results that aren’t embarrassing. The opportunity costs are enormous when funding waste like the Americorp. Don’t you know how many child vaccinations can be paid for with this money? Don’t you know how many struggling families could better use this money if it wasn’t coerced from their paychecks in the first place?
Finally, I find it amusing that Senator Mikulski has absolutely no argument to prove her worthless resolution has any merit (same for all of you in this thread). So instead of engaging in any sort of defense of her worthless bill, she goes the easy route of leaking this to a blog in order to carry out mud slinging. I mean seriously–now you are just embarrassing yourself. Does an elitist like you really want to sink so low as to get into personal jabs like us common folk are doing in this very thread? As fun as it is to laugh at you and your pals here, please stop. Think of the damage you are dealing for public perceptions of Congress. Your collective approval rating is even lower than Bush–and that is saying something (ie America thinks you and your colleagues suck).
May 18th, 2007 at 5:48 pmI used to deliver pizza to the people here in this program. Most of them were there as an alternative to being in jail and it was scary to drive all the way out there, and of course they didn’t bother to tip…
I am not sure if the program is worth the money or not… maybe if the people there actually wanted to help others… but they seemed like a bunch of thugs to me…
May 21st, 2007 at 12:59 amIf only this so called American knew what it was like to be a widowed mother of 4 children that needed the help of the Americorps to help fix things on my home that I can no longer get done, or the help of the Americorp Vista worker who took the time to run me through the Benefit Bank program so I could learn of programs available to me from the State that I was not sure I qualified for. HOW DARE HE!!!!
May 21st, 2007 at 8:14 am