Cutting national service programs is not a good way to reduce spending

By Ross Pomeroy

The author is a Minnesota GreenCorps/AmeriCorps intern who works on energy conservation programs with the City of Elk River.

Republicans in Congress recently announced their plans to cut spending, and it’s a laundry list.  Unfortunately, they want to cut the cleanest articles in the hamper, among them, such programs as AmeriCorps and Teach for America.  These are programs that instill the values of volunteerism, hard work, and self-sacrifice, the very values that this country was founded upon.

Republicans will say that “we are broke,” that these are times for drastic measures.  In response, I say that these are the very times that call for the kind of values that national service programs promote.  We should not be reducing spending to save our country by cutting what’s best about our country.

With parents out of the home and working extra hours to pay the mortgage, who will ensure that your child is learning to read at an adequate level?  Luckily, Minnesota Reading Corps has over 550 members in the state, working in schools and other areas to tutor children in kindergarten through third grade.

With many unemployed or without access to computers, who will make sure that they know how to use technology so they can find jobs and take advantage of learning software?  The 20+ members of the Community Technology Empowerment project take care of this need.

I serve in AmeriCorps, and I am proud to say this.  Through Minnesota GreenCorps, I have helped Minnesota homeowners save money by conducting home energy audits, and I have also gained a newfound love for serving my fellow man.

Over 75,000 AmeriCorps members, most of them recent college graduates, serve across the United States earning a living stipend of less than $900 a month while serving their communities full time.  Now, I may be a tad biased, but I think that they are worth the money.