John Maynard Keynes, an economist who heavily influenced macroeconomic theory famously stated, “The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist.”
Not yet defunct, Greg Mankiw (scroll down to Friday, November 7th) singlehandedly changed the policy of the incoming Obama Administration. The Obama Administration was proposing required national service for all middle school, high school and college students. Economists have a long tradition of opposing required or mandated service in part because it force people to work for less than the market wage. Within twenty four hours, the Obama team changed the word “required” to “setting a goal of.” Shortly thereafter, the entire Obama agenda was pulled from the Internet being replaced by a perfunctory promise of change. To be fair, and I don’t like being fair with our elected officials, I believe that the incoming administration was wise to alter policy goals given current economic turmoil. Michele Catalano at PajamasMedia.com disagrees with Dr. Mankiw’s opposition. Please read the postings by following the links in blue and give your opinion on the program. Do you support the idea of required community service, or the less intrusive program of setting a goal and why?
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On the argument over whether community service should be mandatory or voluntary, I tend to lean more to the side of it being recommended instead of forced. By forcing people to do community service is like taking away their rights to free will. However, I do believe that community service is a good thing and that it needs to be done. Therefore, community service should not be mandatory, but definitely recommended and strongly encouraged. I think that Obama's strive to make it more appealing to the college students by tacking on the $4,000 tuition incentive is a nice idea. I know that it would definitely increase the amount to community service that is done.
ReplyDeleteCarla Haines
carla I agree with you that the $4000 tuition incentive is a nice idea it will make more students willing to go out and do community service to receive it. We would see that number continue to grow because as we all know students could always you extra money.
ReplyDeleteWhat is the potential for those volunteering for community service, such as teachers, being transferred to military service once in the system?
ReplyDeleteI believe community service should be voluntary; however, I believe we each have a moral obligation to be of service. I also share Carla's feelings and think that community service should be strongly encouraged. We live in a great community and as a business coordinator for WISD's Adopt-a-School program, I have first hand knowledge of the impact of such service.
ReplyDeleteI know that the $4,000 tuition incentive for college students is a good idea and i'm all for it, but doesn't that sound like we are paying students to do community service. The government or anyone for that matter should not have to "give incentives" to volunteer because thats basically paying them to do work. Incentives takes a selfless deed and makes it a greedy one. I agree with Carla with the fact that community service should be voluntary and strongly encouraged, but i disagree with giving any student an incentive to complete community service. Community service should be done out of the goodness of your heart, you shouldn't have to be brided to do it.
ReplyDeleteCommunity service should be voluntary. If it was mandatory it would in a way take away the feeling you get when you do a good deed for others, it would be more as a job then as pleasure. Also like others been saying, community services should be greatly encouraged.
ReplyDeleteI think community service should be recommended for students. Not only for the experience of helping out around the community instead of wasting time playing video games and such, but for college things too. Mostly every college i know of requires you to do a certain amount of community service. It's notat hard to lend a helping hand every once in a while. And i also like what Obama is doing with the $4,000 tuition incentive. Its a great idea. College is getting very expensive now and students are glad to get money when they can to help out for the massive cost of schooling.
ReplyDeleteI believe community service should be volunary but highly recommended. Some students are simply not able to do community service, whether its because they have no means of transportation or have part-time jobs in order to help pay bills. I think community service would help build students' morals and understanding of the less fortunate and in turn there would be less teens on the streets getting in trouble.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, the main objective of doing community service is to keep your community healthy and growing. Although the best kind of community service is from the kindness of the heart there just aren't very many giving hearts out there these days who would do voluntary deeds such as this. The $4,000 tuition incentive in my opinion will motivate more young people "volunteer" for communtity service, sure it takes away from those who do contribute only for the self gratitude, but in the end if no one is motivated to help keep the communtities nice what will they come to?
ReplyDeleteI don’t have a problem with community service being mandatory. Community service is a great opportunity for people to get out and network with community leaders, businesses, non profit organizations and all other facets of community giving. There should definitely be an educational incentive offered in return. If the incentive is there people will respond, as discussed in Chapter 1. This mandate would actually tackle one of the 10 Principles of Economics. Principle 4: People respond to Incentives.
ReplyDeleteI believe community service is a wonderful thing to do. Obama has good intentions on getting people more involed with helping their communities. I myself do like the word "required" much better than it being "forced". The $4,000 for college students is a great idea also, by them getting help financialy while doing good for others. Although the point brought up about some one lieing on a college application and being commited of fraud is a set back, most will relize they'll might as well do it. On the other hand people may become greedy just for the money and not doing it for the right reasons. Hopefully tho finding a heart for it in the long run. Over all i think it is a good idea.
ReplyDeletePlease would someone tell the administration that NOT ALL OF US are 19 year old's in a dorm room with nothing to do except play video games and chase the opposite gender.
ReplyDeleteI am a full time working father of three children, if ANYONE would like to tell me where I can fit in an additional 100 hours I would be pleased to help.
Further more, will this "encouraged" community service allow for "religious" service to be included, or will we would be required to be part of some secular agenda? I'm all for handing out cups of water to marathon runners, but I wouldn't be happy if I was forced to help in something that I don't agree with on a moral issue.
Now that he has changed it to a "goal of" will he repeal the peal grant for those of us whom don't make enough money and still have to work to make ends meet?
Someone needs to remind the government that they are not our god, but that they are our representation to the world and are employed by us.
The idea of required service sounds good at first. I am for community service and would be glad to volunteer. 50 hours a year is reasonable and doable for most peoples schedules. After 1 year of the program the government should evaluate the effectiveness of the program. If the program is not very effective then it should be dropped. A downside of the program could be its administrative costs. Would the costs out weigh the value of the program? Would the tax credits further increase national debt?
ReplyDeleteCommunity service shouldn't be forced on people. It defeats the purpose of community service. Community service is supposed to be voluntary not mandatory. You should feel a sense of pride when you take part in community service. If you are forced to do it, then it becomes a burden. The incentive of awarding $4000 to college students is a great idea, but wouldn't that basically change the community service done into paid labor. As far as I'm concerned, community service should be left on a voluntary basis.
ReplyDeleteI definitely think community service should not be a requirement. I believe this would change the entire meaning of community service bcause the motive behind the people doing it would be completely different. However, I do agree that community service should be strongly encouraged. Community service is a great opportunity to improve our communites and also improve someones day. If someone is being required to do the service they will probably have a bad attitude while doing it and therefore the service would not have the same effect. I can't decide if I agree with the tuiton incentives or not, because to me it sounds like a great idea since I already do plenty of community service without it. However, I would not want people to do community service just to receive the incentives.
ReplyDeletethe idea of forcing community service seems absolutely wrong. When i think of community service i see it as a contributive and voluntary act to help out the community. You shouldn't get paid to do community service, you should offer to help serve the community. However, i think recommending community service and having programs in the schools that involve community service is a wonderful idea. I am in PALs and we do at least 20 hours of community service a semester, usually more. Giving students incentives to do community service is a much better way of going about and raising the amount of service completed.
ReplyDeleteMandatory volunteer hours? Are we inmates here? From my experience, people who voluntarily do community service - either for personal enrichment or for personal achievement- are MUCH cheerier than those who are forced. Really, I wouldn't wanna be stuck volunteering with a bunch of complaining, pessimistic people. So no. Volunteering shouldn't be mandatory. This defeats the whole purpose of volunteering.
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