Obama removes “required” from statement on community service

Pete writes:

I was appalled to read on your blog that the Obama administration proposed to “require” people to perform community service. You quoted his transition page about community service as follows:

Obama will call on citizens of all ages to serve America, by developing a plan to require 50 hours of community service in middle school and high school and 100 hours of community service in college every year.

However, that sentence on the change.gov webpage now reads as follows:

Obama will call on citizens of all ages to serve America, by setting a goal that all middle school and high school students do 50 hours of community service a year and by developing a plan so that all college students who conduct 100 hours of community service receive a universal and fully refundable tax credit ensuring that the first $4,000 of their college education is completely free.

What is the cause of the discrepancy?

LA replies:

Someone else mentioned this earlier today. Probably Obama’s people saw that “required” would be unacceptable to the American public, and they changed it.

LA writes:

Tom Blumer at Newsbusters has more details on Obama’s community service plan. It seems that students will be paid $40 an hour.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at November 08, 2008 02:01 PM | Send