{"id":14145,"date":"2019-11-20T18:21:23","date_gmt":"2019-11-20T23:21:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/?p=14145"},"modified":"2025-08-15T09:33:54","modified_gmt":"2025-08-15T13:33:54","slug":"buttigiegs-biggest-boondoggle-an-army-of-federally-funded-leftist-activists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2019\/11\/20\/buttigiegs-biggest-boondoggle-an-army-of-federally-funded-leftist-activists\/","title":{"rendered":"Buttigieg’s Biggest Boondoggle: An Army Of Federally Funded Leftist Activists?"},"content":{"rendered":"

American Renewal <\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Buttigieg\u2019s Biggest Boondoggle: An Army Of Federally Funded Leftist Activists?<\/a><\/h1>\n
<\/div>\n

\"Daily<\/p>\n

\n
James Bovard <\/a> Contributor<\/span><\/div>\n

\n
\n

Democratic presidential frontrunner Pete Buttigieg is calling for a vast expansion of \u201cnational service\u201d to enlist a million young Americans to perform federally approved activities. Buttigieg says his program will \u201crepair the social fabric in our nation\u201d and \u201cbuild social capital.\u201d But Buttigieg\u2019s \u201ccall to service\u201d could quickly become a \u201csummons to submission.\u201d<\/p>\n

Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, wants to create \u201ca universal, national expectation<\/a> of service for all 4 million high school graduates every year.\u201d Buttigieg declares, \u201cThe goal is for \u2018where did you serve<\/a>?\u2019 to be as important a question at a job interview as \u2018where did you go to college?\u2019\u201d What right does any politician have to decree the questions by which young Americans are judged?<\/p>\n

If the duty to \u201cserve\u201d is \u201cuniversal,\u201d it won\u2019t be voluntary. Buttigieg seeks to create a program that would be morally obligatory without being legally compulsory \u2013 at least initially. One critic derided Buttigieg\u2019s plan as a \u201cShame Corps<\/a>\u201d that young people would feel browbeaten to join, while a supporter of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, a 2020 Democrat, derided it as a \u201cglide path to the draft<\/a><\/strong>.\u201d Former Rep. John Delaney made a one-year mandatory service requirement<\/a> for every 18-year-old a keystone of his short-lived Democratic presidential campaign. Compulsory service for all young people is also being floated by the congressionally created National Commission on Military, National, and Public Service<\/a>. The more people who enlist in Buttigieg\u2019s salvation scheme, the easier it becomes to make the program mandatory for everyone else \u2013 in the name of fairness.<\/p>\n

Buttigieg\u2019s visionary plan will appeal to people looking for a job in lieu of actual work. Buttigieg\u2019s \u201cNew Call to Service<\/a>\u201d notes that there are over 100,000 nonprofit organizations with \u201cannual expenses over $500,000 \u2013 a good proxy for the capacity to host at least a couple young people doing a year of service.\u201d \u201cHosting\u201d sounds more like babysitting than hard labor. The Government Accountability Office thumped AmeriCorps for failing to \u201cdemonstrate results<\/a>\u201d and ignoring \u201cthe quality of service provided\u201d by its members.<\/p>\n

AmeriCorps, a program with the unctuous motto \u201cBe the Greater Good<\/a>,\u201d is the model for Buttigieg\u2019s plan. Buttigieg wants to vastly expand AmeriCorps \u2014<\/span><\/span> which currently has roughly 75,000 members \u2014<\/span><\/span> to multiply its good deeds across the land. But that program (which the Trump administration has repeatedly sought to abolish<\/a>) is renowned for shoveling out money far and wide while asking few questions. The agency\u2019s inspector general condemned it in 2014 for \u201cshocking waste of taxpayer funds<\/a>, lax oversight, unauthorized contractual commitments and widespread noncompliance with rules, regulations and sound contracting practices.\u201d<\/p>\n

Buttigieg wants to create a Climate Corps<\/a> so that recruits can pretend to address \u201cclimate disruption\u201d \u2014<\/span><\/span> as if virtue signaling could turn back any rising tide. But AmeriCorps already has a legion of other dubious Corps. There is an Anti-Hunger Corps<\/a>, which perennially boosts the demand for government food handouts. There is a Reading Corps<\/a>, which has done nothing to close the literacy gap among different races of school kids. (The District of Columbia education superintendent boasted earlier this year that AmeriCorps tutors had helped boost literacy so much that \u201cone in six students achieved<\/a> grade level proficiency.\u201d) Playworks AmeriCorps teaches anti-bullying lessons and claimed that having AmeriCorps members \u201cplay alongside of children\u201d adds \u201can important element of silliness and shared humanity<\/a>.\u201d How did America ever survive without 242 federally funded<\/a> playground monitors?<\/p>\n

Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts senator, has not made national service a signature issue but she is promising to \u201crecruit 10,000 young people<\/a> and veterans to jump-start a 21st Century Civilian Conservation Corps\u201d (which Buttigieg also supports). Perhaps Warren and Buttigieg are unaware that the National Civil Conservation Corps (NCCC) has been AmeriCorps\u2019 flagship program for its entire 25 years.\u00a0But the cost per NCCC participant is up to eight times higher than other AmeriCorps<\/a> programs and the NCCC routinely duplicates activities performed by other, much lower-cost AmeriCorps programs. The NCCC fails to attract enough recruits to fill its positions and more than a quarter of enlistees drop out before finishing their 10-month term, often because they feel their time is wasted.<\/p>\n

Buttigieg\u2019s plan would result in a new political slush fund that could finance an army of liberal activi<\/strong>sts. During the Clinton administration, AmeriCorps bankrolled ACORN<\/a> and the Welfare Rights Organizing Coalition<\/a>. AmeriCorps would never subsidize individuals volunteering with their churches, but AmeriCorps members provided escort services for women going to abortion clinics<\/a> in 2016. Two Republican congressmen have formally requested that the AmeriCorps inspector general release a draft report on AmeriCorps involvement in providing abortion services or referrals, as the Daily Caller News Foundation recently reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n

AmeriCorps has not formally designated a Condom Corps but its recruits are stretching to cover that bas<\/strong>e. In Salt Lake City, an AmeriCorps member in 2018 collected condom donations from Planned Parenthood<\/a>, which she then distributed to local schools. In Florida, AmeriCorps members participated in \u201cCondom Blast<\/a>,\u201d passing out thousands of bags with condoms and information on sexually transmitted disease testing. In Johnson City, New York, an AmeriCorps member is \u201cteaching condom negotiation skills<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Buttigieg\u2019s plan, like AmeriCorps, will be unable to distinguish between real and imaginary \u201cservice.\u201d Two years ago, the inspector general warned of pervasive fraud involving \u201cteleservice<\/a>\u201d \u2014<\/span><\/span> AmeriCorps members phoning in claims of the good deeds they supposedly did. Many grantees made no effort to verify the purported hours served. AmeriCorps management responded by recommending \u201cimmediate contact between the member and individuals to whom services are rendered<\/a>.\u201d This is AmeriCorps\u2019 definition of \u201cclose enough for government work\u201d altruism.<\/p>\n

Corralling young people into bogus benevolence schemes is far more likely to pointlessly delay adulthood than to save America\u2019s soul. Volunteering and helping other people is a virtue but permitting politicians to define the goals and terms converts service into a recipe for servitude.<\/strong> Nothing that Buttigieg or any other politician has said can justify nullifying the 13th Amendment\u2019s prohibition of involuntary servitude<\/a>.<\/p>\n

James Bovard<\/em> is the author of \u201c<\/em>Attention Deficit Democracy<\/em><\/a>,\u201d \u201c<\/em>The Bush Betrayal<\/em><\/a>,\u201d \u201c<\/em>Terrorism and Tyranny<\/em><\/a>,\u201d and other books. Bovard is on the\u00a0USA Today Board of Contributors. He is on Twitter at @jimbovard. His website is at <\/em>www.jimbovard.com<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

American Renewal Buttigieg\u2019s Biggest Boondoggle: An Army Of Federally Funded Leftist Activists? James Bovard Contributor November 20, 2019 5:18 PM ET Democratic presidential frontrunner Pete Buttigieg is calling for a vast expansion of \u201cnational service\u201d to enlist a million young Americans to perform federally approved activities. Buttigieg says his program will \u201crepair the social fabric […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5669,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[40,415,2022,2166,1114,322,423,525,2165,2164,811],"class_list":["post-14145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-americorps","tag-boondoggle","tag-buttigieg","tag-condom-corps","tag-conscription","tag-food-stamps","tag-hunger","tag-reading","tag-salvation","tag-service","tag-slavery"],"yoast_head":"\nButtigieg's Biggest Boondoggle: An Army Of Federally Funded Leftist Activists? - James Bovard<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2019\/11\/20\/buttigiegs-biggest-boondoggle-an-army-of-federally-funded-leftist-activists\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Buttigieg's Biggest Boondoggle: An Army Of Federally Funded Leftist Activists? - James Bovard\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"American Renewal Buttigieg\u2019s Biggest Boondoggle: An Army Of Federally Funded Leftist Activists? James Bovard Contributor November 20, 2019 5:18 PM ET Democratic presidential frontrunner Pete Buttigieg is calling for a vast expansion of \u201cnational service\u201d to enlist a million young Americans to perform federally approved activities. 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The Wall Street Journal called Bovard \\\"the roving inspector general of the modern state\\\" and Washington Post columnist George Will called him a \\\"one-man truth squad.\\\" His 1994 book, Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty, received the Free Press Association\u2019s Mencken Award as Book of the Year. His Terrorism & Tyranny won the Lysander Spooner \\\"Best Book on Liberty in 2003\\\" award. He received the Thomas Szasz Award for Civil Liberties work, awarded by the Center for Independent Thought and the Freedom Fund Award from the Firearms Civil Rights Defense Fund of the National Rifle Association. Bovard\u2019s writings have been publicly denounced by FBI director Louis Freeh, the Secretary of Agriculture, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, the Postmaster General, and the chiefs of the U.S. International Trade Commission, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, as well as by many congressmen and other malcontents.\",\"sameAs\":[\"http:\\\/\\\/www.jimbovard.com\",\"https:\\\/\\\/www.facebook.com\\\/jim.bovard\",\"https:\\\/\\\/x.com\\\/jimbovard\"],\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/author\\\/admin\\\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Buttigieg's Biggest Boondoggle: An Army Of Federally Funded Leftist Activists? - James Bovard","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2019\/11\/20\/buttigiegs-biggest-boondoggle-an-army-of-federally-funded-leftist-activists\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Buttigieg's Biggest Boondoggle: An Army Of Federally Funded Leftist Activists? - James Bovard","og_description":"American Renewal Buttigieg\u2019s Biggest Boondoggle: An Army Of Federally Funded Leftist Activists? James Bovard Contributor November 20, 2019 5:18 PM ET Democratic presidential frontrunner Pete Buttigieg is calling for a vast expansion of \u201cnational service\u201d to enlist a million young Americans to perform federally approved activities. Buttigieg says his program will \u201crepair the social fabric […]","og_url":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2019\/11\/20\/buttigiegs-biggest-boondoggle-an-army-of-federally-funded-leftist-activists\/","og_site_name":"James Bovard","article_author":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/jim.bovard","article_published_time":"2019-11-20T23:21:23+00:00","article_modified_time":"2025-08-15T13:33:54+00:00","og_image":[{"width":500,"height":500,"url":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/americorps-image-ac.png","type":"image\/png"}],"author":"Jim","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@jimbovard","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Jim","Est. reading time":"6 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2019\/11\/20\/buttigiegs-biggest-boondoggle-an-army-of-federally-funded-leftist-activists\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2019\/11\/20\/buttigiegs-biggest-boondoggle-an-army-of-federally-funded-leftist-activists\/"},"author":{"name":"Jim","@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/79550830ad81c14be529a2c37469974f"},"headline":"Buttigieg’s Biggest Boondoggle: An Army Of Federally Funded Leftist Activists?","datePublished":"2019-11-20T23:21:23+00:00","dateModified":"2025-08-15T13:33:54+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2019\/11\/20\/buttigiegs-biggest-boondoggle-an-army-of-federally-funded-leftist-activists\/"},"wordCount":1057,"commentCount":0,"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2019\/11\/20\/buttigiegs-biggest-boondoggle-an-army-of-federally-funded-leftist-activists\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/americorps-image-ac.png","keywords":["AmeriCorps","Boondoggle","Buttigieg","Condom Corps","conscription","Food Stamps","hunger","reading","salvation","service","slavery"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2019\/11\/20\/buttigiegs-biggest-boondoggle-an-army-of-federally-funded-leftist-activists\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2019\/11\/20\/buttigiegs-biggest-boondoggle-an-army-of-federally-funded-leftist-activists\/","url":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2019\/11\/20\/buttigiegs-biggest-boondoggle-an-army-of-federally-funded-leftist-activists\/","name":"Buttigieg's Biggest Boondoggle: An Army Of Federally Funded Leftist Activists? - James Bovard","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2019\/11\/20\/buttigiegs-biggest-boondoggle-an-army-of-federally-funded-leftist-activists\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2019\/11\/20\/buttigiegs-biggest-boondoggle-an-army-of-federally-funded-leftist-activists\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/americorps-image-ac.png","datePublished":"2019-11-20T23:21:23+00:00","dateModified":"2025-08-15T13:33:54+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/79550830ad81c14be529a2c37469974f"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2019\/11\/20\/buttigiegs-biggest-boondoggle-an-army-of-federally-funded-leftist-activists\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2019\/11\/20\/buttigiegs-biggest-boondoggle-an-army-of-federally-funded-leftist-activists\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2019\/11\/20\/buttigiegs-biggest-boondoggle-an-army-of-federally-funded-leftist-activists\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/americorps-image-ac.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/americorps-image-ac.png","width":500,"height":500},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2019\/11\/20\/buttigiegs-biggest-boondoggle-an-army-of-federally-funded-leftist-activists\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Buttigieg’s Biggest Boondoggle: An Army Of Federally Funded Leftist Activists?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/","name":"James Bovard","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/79550830ad81c14be529a2c37469974f","name":"Jim","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/d95466cfd0934e38803c5035629df727ae4ec1f3f96c6883c05b5c52e2044505?s=96&d=mm&r=r","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/d95466cfd0934e38803c5035629df727ae4ec1f3f96c6883c05b5c52e2044505?s=96&d=mm&r=r","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/d95466cfd0934e38803c5035629df727ae4ec1f3f96c6883c05b5c52e2044505?s=96&d=mm&r=r","caption":"Jim"},"description":"Bovard's homepage is at http:\/\/www.jimbovard.com He can be contacted at jim@jimbovard.com James Bovard is the author of ten books. The Wall Street Journal called Bovard \"the roving inspector general of the modern state\" and Washington Post columnist George Will called him a \"one-man truth squad.\" His 1994 book, Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty, received the Free Press Association\u2019s Mencken Award as Book of the Year. His Terrorism & Tyranny won the Lysander Spooner \"Best Book on Liberty in 2003\" award. He received the Thomas Szasz Award for Civil Liberties work, awarded by the Center for Independent Thought and the Freedom Fund Award from the Firearms Civil Rights Defense Fund of the National Rifle Association. Bovard\u2019s writings have been publicly denounced by FBI director Louis Freeh, the Secretary of Agriculture, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, the Postmaster General, and the chiefs of the U.S. International Trade Commission, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, as well as by many congressmen and other malcontents.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.jimbovard.com","https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/jim.bovard","https:\/\/x.com\/jimbovard"],"url":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/author\/admin\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14145"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14145\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21843,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14145\/revisions\/21843"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}