Does the U.S. need a new call to public service? Two views

By MICHELLE NUNN

Yes: Nation must equip its greatest resource — its people — to fix problems

“Patriotism is not a mere sentiment. It is a fine energy of character and conscience operating beyond the narrow circle of self-interest. Every man [and woman] should be careful to have an available surplus of energy over and above what he spends upon himself and his own interests to spend for the advancement of his neighbors, of his people, of his nation.”

Woodrow Wilson’s idea that our reverence for this great country extends beyond our allegiance and into personal action and responsibility is timeless. This unique mix of resolve, optimism and civic responsibility has defined our national character.

Now another president, facing great challenges at home and abroad, calls us to recognize the obligations of a free people, bound by a common sense of purpose and dedication to a better world. President Barack Obama calls each of us to act on behalf of our neighbors and our nation. This week, with the president’s urging and support, the U.S. Senate will consider the bipartisan Serve America Act, led by Sens. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), that will expand the opportunities for every American to serve.

While the legislation builds upon a history of citizen service, it also comes at a unique and critical time. We are facing the greatest economic downturn of our lifetime and nonprofits providing critical services have been hit hard. Fifty-two percent of nonprofits have reported experiencing cuts in funding while 75 percent report seeing increased demand for services, particularly in support for shelters, schools, hospitals and senior and youth centers.

The nonprofit sector constitutes 11 percent of the U.S. work force — more than the auto and financial industries combined — and should not be overlooked as a powerful lever in repairing the national economy and providing the safety net that will help ensure the well-being of families and individuals in need. This sector is dependent upon leveraging human capital by managing, training and mobilizing volunteers to address civic needs.

In 2007, 60 million Americans dedicated 8.1 billion hours of service to community organizations. Researchers estimate the cost of that service, had it been done by paid workers, would have amounted to $158 billion. The Serve America Act will invest in the capacity for growing this extraordinarily cost-effective resource through a Volunteer Generation Fund.

Serve America will also grow to engage 250,000 Americans a year in national service positions. National service is the civic equivalent of our military — a vanguard of committed full-time public servants who meet critical needs while receiving a very small stipend and advancing their education through earned educational scholarships.

The gift of American citizenship is not without price. That price is our responsibility to each other. At this critical time in our nation’s history, we must equip and support our greatest resource — our people — to tackle and solve our tough challenges.

We must invest in our civic infrastructure just as we invest in our physical infrastructure.

We must find ways to honor our obligation as citizens to give of ourselves, to rediscover that “surplus of energy” to fuel our country’s renewal, and we must do it now.

• Michelle Nunn is CEO of Points of Light Institute.

No: When government organizes public service, it cripples public spirit

By BRIAN BROWN

What if public service made you more selfish? It’s a counterintuitive notion, to be sure. President Barack Obama, after all, has promised to make public service “a cause of my presidency” to help get the country back on its feet. Ironically, though, his notions of “public” and of “service” are both heavily responsible for the very selfishness he wants to eradicate.

Following his proposals would not only fail to help the country — it might even make things worse.

Far from “change,” Obama’s concept of “the public” dates back to the French Revolution and was popular a century ago among intellectual elites such as Woodrow Wilson, who considered former notions of public service outdated. To unleash the energies of the American people, Wilson said, Washington experts needed to coordinate them.

Yet that profound observer of America, Alexis de Tocqueville, knew better. He had seen centralized coordination of public service in pre-revolutionary France, and was aware that it crippled public spirit. Why? Because when everything was run by “a powerful foreigner called the government,” Frenchmen saw no need for community at all.

Service was no longer a normal part of their everyday lives. Instead of aiding his neighbors when problems arose, the typical Frenchman waited for government to clean up the mess — and grew selfish and individualistic. Why help the homeless man down the street when there was a government program for that?

In contrast, Tocqueville was amazed by the vibrant public spirit in America, where there was no centralized public service. An American believed that his town was his responsibility, and worked hard to make it better — not because of some airy devotion to “the public,” but because he had relationships with neighbors.

Unlike Tocqueville, who thought a large, diverse country was too complex for bureaucrats, Wilson thought it was too complex for its citizens. He wanted his fellow professors running the whole country, rather than small groups of Americans running their little parts of it.

Today, another professor is president, and he believes the answer is Wilson. Yet despite a barrage of Wilsonian public service programs from Presidents Franklin Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, the problems Obama identifies are largely the same problems Wilson saw — too little public spirit, and too little government organizing it.

The solution, Obama believes, is taking those same programs and making them bigger. He wants to increase AmeriCorps from 75,000 to 250,000 workers, the Peace Corps to 16,000 and YouthBuild to 50,000. He wants to revive President Clinton’s idea of giving college students a tuition break for participation in such programs, to reallocate 25 percent of work-study funds to favor public-service jobs, and to expand high school service-learning programs.

But if these programs, in so many generations, haven’t solved the problems, why would they do so now? In reality, Tocqueville was right — public spiritedness is best fostered through real responsibilities in a local community. Putting people in full-time government programs sends the message that public service isn’t for everyone, and paying them defeats the whole idea of service.

• Brian Brown is a research associate at The Heritage Foundation.