DOGE helps gut the leftist lunacy at this most pious agency

My suggestion: AmeriCorps is impervious that if "we clasp hands and judge ... we tin alteration thing we privation to change," President Bill Clinton declared successful 1999. But aft much than 30 years of fraud, mendacious claims and governmental racketeering, AmeriCorps – the national paid unpaid oxymoron - conscionable got deed by a DOGE torpedo.  

"AmeriCorps has failed 8 consecutive audits and is entrusted with implicit $1 cardinal successful payer dollars each year," White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly declared. The agency’s Office of Inspector General condemned it successful 2014 for "shocking discarded of payer funds, lax oversight, unauthorized contractual commitments and wide noncompliance with rules, regulations and dependable contracting practices."  

Things person lone gotten worse since then. DOGE froze $400 cardinal successful grants to much than a 1000 organizations, terminating much than 30,000 AmeriCorps members. Most AmeriCorps staffers person either discontinue oregon were placed connected paid leave.  

TRUMP ADMIN GUTS AMERICORPS, CLINTON-ERA VOLUNTEER AGENCY THAT FAILED 8 CONSECUTIVE AUDITS

AmeriCorps is simply a ripe DOGE people due to the fact that its motto seems to be: "Leave No Boondoggle Behind." In Missouri, AmeriCorps members released 70 bluish balloons extracurricular a region courthouse to gully attraction to the plight of abused children.  

Former President Bill Clinton with AmeriCorps younker during lawsuit astatine the University of Maryland. (Photo by Dirck Halstead/Getty Images)

Hundreds of Playworks AmeriCorps members served arsenic simple schoolhouse "recess referees," bringing "safe and inclusive play to each students." AmeriCorps members successful the Florida "Women successful Distress" programme organized a poesy speechmaking connected the evils of home violence. 

Federal agencies are prohibited from bankrolling governmental advocacy, but that doesn’t halt AmeriCorps. AmeriCorps aided and abetted ACORN, the Welfare Rights Organizing Coalition, the Political Asylum Project of Austin, the National Association of HUD Tenants and Planned Parenthood. AmeriCorps members person busied themselves passing retired escaped condoms and providing escort services for women going to termination clinics.  

I person chronicled AmeriCorps’ debacles implicit the decades successful The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Playboy, and American Spectator. After Clinton bragged that AmeriCorps members had taught millions of kids however to read, I visited 1 of their premier literacy programs successful West Virginia. AmeriCorps members emphatically denied teaching kids however to work – instead, they said they were simply exposing children to books.  

In Mississippi, I attended the opening of an AmeriCorps adjunct teacher grooming programme wherever recruits were lone required to work astatine an 8th people level. (The program’s assistance exertion was chock-full of grammar and spelling errors.) 

According to AmeriCorps, "national work returns up to $17 for each national dollar invested" successful AmeriCorps. The look lawsuit counts the stipends paid to AmeriCorps recruits – arsenic if they would different ne'er get a paying occupation elsewhere. The tortured assumptions utilized to gin up the $17/$1 multiplier can’t beryllium squared with having nary wide thought wherever national funds really go.  

 I saw this first-hand successful 1999 erstwhile I visited a premier AmeriCorps programme which received $600,000 to enlistee radical for nutrient stamps. After the enforcement manager of that Mississippi programme evaded my questions, I alerted the Inspector General. Turns retired that AmeriCorps wealth was spent connected 14 shade employees (including a section mayor) who did thing for the program. The main of that section bureau was convicted and sentenced to 41 months successful prison. 

AmeriCorps inactive struggles to separate betwixt existent and imaginary "service." During the archetypal Trump administration, the Inspector General warned of pervasive fraud involving "teleservice" — AmeriCorps members phoning successful claims of the bully deeds they supposedly did. Many grantees made nary effort to verify the purported hours served. AmeriCorps absorption responded by recommending "immediate interaction betwixt the subordinate and individuals to whom services are rendered."  

This is AmeriCorps’ explanation of "close capable for authorities work" altruism. The Government Accountability Office slammed AmeriCorps for failing to "demonstrate results" and ignoring "the prime of work provided" by its members. 

In Mississippi, I attended the opening of an AmeriCorps adjunct teacher grooming programme wherever recruits were lone required to work astatine an 8th people level. 

AmeriCorps apologists perpetually represent AmeriCorps recruits arsenic fiscal martyrs. Pennsylvania Democrat Rep. Chrissy Houlahan boasts of her clip with AmeriCorps, declaring, "It’s a selfless enactment to serve, but you are gaining experience, and you are capable to parlay that into opportunities successful the civilian economy." But she was portion of the Teach for America programme whose AmeriCorps recruits were paid up to $80,000 a twelvemonth positive benefits.  

CLICK HERE FOR MORE FOX NEWS OPINION

Most AmeriCorps members person acold less, but the wide bundle of stipends, fringe benefits and acquisition awards transcend the wages collected by millions of Americans astatine the bottommost of the wage scale. Being an AmeriCorps subordinate is easier than making fries astatine McDonald’s.  

Olga Rodriguez lamented connected the Huffington Post that serving successful AmeriCorps was destroying her enactment ethic. AmeriCorps subordinate Nicole Patterson, who received a Congressional Bronze Medal for Community Service, vented: "I spent six weeks playing Scrabble and kickball for America. I spent different 2 months sitting successful a instrumentality shed for America." 

Former President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden airs with members of AmeriCorps connected accomplishment astatine Joint Base Charleston successful North Charleston, South Carolina, connected January 19, 2025. (Photo by ROBERTO SCHMIDT/AFP via Getty Images)

Democrats and liberals are seeking to ignite panic implicit the demise of AmeriCorps, but did these apologists neglect arithmetic agelong ago? AmeriCorps had astir 75,000 paid members earlier the DOGE purge. According to the Census Bureau, 75 cardinal Americans formally unpaid with organizations each year. AmeriCorps amounts to hardly 1 tenth of 1 percent of the full fig of volunteers successful this country.  

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

More than 20 states filed a suit connected April 29, challenging the Trump administration’s AmeriCorps cutbacks. According to Fox News, "AmeriCorps is expected to stay successful existence, but fundamentally volition beryllium restarted from scratch." But determination is nary mode to redeem a programme that boasts of its balloon launches, poesy readings and condom giveaways.  

Congress and the Trump medication should admit that AmeriCorps volition ne'er beryllium much than societal enactment tinged with messianic delusions. There are a 1000 times arsenic galore backstage volunteers who volition guarantee that AmeriCorps members volition not beryllium missed. Taxpayers tin nary longer spend AmeriCorps’ endless virtuousness signaling.  

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM JIM BOVARD