After President Bush announced in his State of the Union address that he would support and expand the much maligned Clinton-era public service program AmeriCorps, some Republicans shook their heads. Majority Leader Dick Armey remarked that he couldn't understand "why anybody would embrace AmeriCorps," labeling it "obnoxious." And in an editorial last Thursday, The Wall Street Journal called AmeriCorps, "Bill Clinton's pet national service program."
Yet beyond such grousing, the once vocal AmeriCorps opposition has largely gone silent. John O'Sullivan even called Bush's new USA Freedom Corps "important and valuable" in the National Review. And groups like the Heritage Foundation, which once labeled AmeriCorps a "$575 million boondoggle," haven't said a word. Neither have the vast majority of Armey's Clinton-hating brethren in the House.
What's going on here? The truth is that even as conservatives doggedly complained that it was too bureaucratic, the decentralized structure of AmeriCorps proved the key to its political success. Most Corpsmembers work with non-profits at the local level, on programs selected by state and national service boards. And by struggling to keep the program alive throughout the '90s despite much opposition, Clinton and his allies gave AmeriCorps the opportunity to prove itself at the grassroots.
It worked. Few politicians who saw Corpsmembers at work in their communities could believe absurd stereotypes that they were in it for the money or, as James Bovard claimed in an American Spectator article in 2000, "future low-rent Democratic operative[s]." Indeed, watching AmeriCorps in action led many Republicans, including John Kasich, Rick Santorum, and most notably, John McCain, to change their minds about the program. And as more and more local politicians saw the good AmeriCorps did, support rose up the political ladder. In 2000, 49 of 50 governors signed a letter supporting AmeriCorps re-authorization, including George W. Bush.
Now, with the nation at war and a renewed spirit of patriotism, there could hardly be a better time for Republican politicians who are looking associate themselves with "national greatness conservatism" to support AmeriCorps. John McCain did precisely that in October with an article in the Washington Monthly calling for an expansion of the program with a focus on its military aspects. And Bush's USA Freedom Corps brings AmeriCorps and its sister program for older Americans, Senior Corps, together with the Peace Corps and a new public safety-themed Citizen Corps under one organizational roof, and significantly increases funding for them all.
Granted, there remains a chance that opponents will once again wield grossly misrepresentative anecdotes in a final bid to discredit AmeriCorps' full-time volunteers, who earn poverty level living stipends and an education award. Much more likely, however, is that few will dare oppose the program at a time of renewed national unity and with Bush and McCain as strong supporters.
The irony is that, for the most part, Bill Clinton's starry-eyed 1992 agenda quickly disappeared when he came into office. Most of his big ideas found little traction in Washington, with the death of health care reform and the passage of a welfare reform law bearing little resemblance to the one Clinton suggested while campaigning. Yet the national service program colloquially referred to as the "domestic Peace Corps" passed with few substantive alterations.
So while President Bush takes credit for his USA Freedom Corps, Clinton has every right to grin. AmeriCorps has survived seven years of constant attack since the Republican Congress came to power, and proven its value to all but the most vehement haters of Clinton and big government. Now, it may turn out to be one of the greatest legacies of his presidency.
