Americorps - more gov spending

This angers me more than anything . . . from a reader

This week the White House announced $234 million in grants to Americorps and other "service"-oriented nonprofits through the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act. The press release reports:

Together with other positions in AmeriCorps VISTA and NCCC, AmeriCorps is on track to support more than 85,000 members this year, the first step towards the Serve America Act goal of 250,000 annual AmeriCorps members by the year 2017.

These numbers do not approach the perhaps hyperbolic remark by candidate Obama in July 2008 that "[w]e've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded [as our military]." But a force of 250,000 is not insignificant; our Marine Corps numbers 203,000.

Analysis of the 2010 disbursements reveals gross inequalities among the states. As with ARRA stimulus money, blue states were the big winners. Overall, states that voted for Obama in 2008 garnered 81% of Ted Kennedy Serve America funding, while red states were thrown a bone of the remaining 19%.

The way the program redistributes federal tax receipts is not even a case of "spreading the wealth around"; many of the wealthiest states receive the most funding. Massachusetts, 6th out of 50 in median household income, receives twelve times the funding of West Virginia, 49th out of 50. The District of Columbia, with 600,000 residents, receives 18 times the funding of Alabama, population 4.7 million. In other words, D.C. ranks 11th in median household income, and it receives 140 times as much funding per capita as Alabama, which is 46th out of 50.

http://www.grandstreet.org/html/americorps.html