Obama's Millennial
Moment: President to
Sign National Service
Bill Today
In a ceremony fraught
with political and
generational symbolism,
President Barack Obama
today will sign the
aptly named “Generations
Invigorating
Volunteerism and
Education” (GIVE)
Act (now the Edward M.
Kennedy Serve America
Act) at the SEED school,
a DC public school that
caters to underserved
children. This ceremony
caps his campaign
promise to ask Americans
to reinvigorate their
country through
community service. GIVE
represents a major
redemption of candidate
Obama’s promise to offer
his most loyal and
largest constituency,
Millennials, born
between 1982 and 2003, a
chance to serve their
country at the community
level and in return earn
assistance with the cost
of their college
education.
Not everyone is ready to
join hands and sing the
praises of the concept,
however. While GIVE
enjoyed bipartisan
sponsorship in both the
Senate and the House,
that didn’t prevent a
majority of Republicans
from voting against the
bill on final passage.
They complained that the
bill was “too expensive”
and would crowd out pure
volunteer work with
program participants
receiving a modicum of
financial support for
their efforts from the
federal government. In
the House, 149 of 175
Republicans voted “no,”
joined by 19 of their
colleagues in the
Senate, including the
party's two top leaders.
With all Democrats
voting in favor of GIVE,
the core of the
Republican’s “Just say
no” caucus demonstrated
how out of touch with
the Millennial
Generation they are.
Of those Republicans
expressing their
opposition in the
Senate,
only one, John
Ensign of Nevada, was
from a state that Obama
carried. Even though
both Republican Senators
from such bright red
states as Utah, Georgia
and Mississippi could
see the potential value
of increasing the number
of volunteers and
college students in the
country’s civic life,
both GOP Senators from
South Carolina, Kansas,
Kentucky, Oklahoma and
Idaho made it clear that
there were no
circumstances under
which their hostility to
government could be
softened by the merits
of a patriotic cause.
As Senator Jim DeMint of
South Carolina put it on
his
Web site, "We need
to recognize that this
bill does represent a
lot of what's wrong with
our federal government
today.... civil society
works, because it is
everything that
government is not. It's
small, it's personal,
it's responsible, it's
accountable.” And
Louisiana Senator David
Vitter
spuriously argued,
“This new federal
bureaucracy would, in
effect, politicize
charitable activity
around the country."
Echoing Governor Sarah
Palin’s horribly off key
comment at her party’s
convention last August
that “the world isn’t a
community and it doesn’t
need an organizer,”
these Republicans
demonstrated just how
out of touch they are
with
Millennial thinking.
Meanwhile, President
Obama’s signature
initiative is drawing
Millennials ever closer
to his political agenda.
Chris Golden and Nick
Troiano, Millennial
co-founders of
myImpact.org plan on
launching a social
network designed to
connect volunteers and
their experiences to
others with similar
interests as soon as the
legislation creates a
market for such sharing
and support. Two
Millennials who served a
term in the New
Hampshire legislature as
they began their college
careers, Andrew Edwards
and Jeff Fontas, are now
anxious to play “a
central role in getting
a ‘Spirit of Service’
off the ground” as their
next step in a career of
civic involvement. These
are just two examples of
Millennials deep desire
to serve.
Already the shift toward
civic involvement by
this new generation, in
contrast to its
Generation X
predecessors, has
doubled the proportion
of 16-24 year olds
serving in the nation’s
existing volunteer
corps. Ninety-four
percent of Millennials
believes community
service is an effective
way to solve problems at
the local level and 85
percent thinks that is
true for national
problems as well.
CIRCLE, an
organization devoted to
tracking the interests
of Millennials in
serving their country,
points out that the
second most important
factor, other than
having time, “in
deciding whether or not
to get involved in an
activity is the impact
that they [Millennials]
think it will yield.”
With the elevated
profile such activities
will enjoy under
provisions of the GIVE
Act, it is not too
difficult to imagine
Millennials taking up
over 80,000 of the
250,000 volunteer slots
that will be made
available under GIVE’s
provisions—greater than
the number of all
Americans currently
serving their country’s
communities.
At the signing ceremony,
the President will be
joined by many other
equally committed
sponsors of the concept
of national service,
including Senator Ted
Kennedy in honor of whom
the final legislation
was named "The Edward M.
Kennedy Serve America
Act,” to celebrate the
country’s embrace of
this new ethos of
service. While
Millennials across the
country join with them
to celebrate this
historic change in
America’s behavior,
Republicans will be
left, once again, locked
in the dogmas of their
past, unable to imagine
a country where
government encourages
private initiative and
the nation is far better
off for it.
