September 4, 2008 | Read Time: 1 minute
Both presidential candidates from the two major political parties plan to promote national service when they speak at the ServiceNation Summit September 11.
Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, has yet to propose a specific plan on national service but is expected to do so at the meeting. In the past, he has introduced legislation to increase participation in the federal AmeriCorps service program to 250,000. It currently has about 75,000 participants.
Key elements of the plan promoted by Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic nominee, include:
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Expanding AmeriCorps to 250,000 slots and doubling the size of the Peace Corps to 16,000.
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Recruiting additional volunteers to establish five new groups: Classroom Corps, Health Corps, Clean Energy Corps, Veterans Corps, and Homeland Security Corps.
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Increasing service opportunities at colleges by giving students money for college tuition if they complete 100 hours of service per year, and increasing the number of work-study options with a service focus, such as tutoring.
- Paying for the estimated $3.5-billion per year to expand federal service programs by eliminating tax breaks for international corporations and by ending the war in Iraq.
