Obama is already doing things I didn't know the President could do.
That's a helluva lot of money to spend in the middle of a budget crisis on paying people to do work, the nature of which is so far undecided.
Justifying one enormous waste of money by saying "Oh well, at least it's not as big a waste of money as that other waste of money" isn't a good way to run a budget.
Would you run your personal budget that way? "Aw geez, well I bought a $300,000 boat last month, so I guess it's okay to buy a $100,000 car now."
I agree, though, that big spending plans are things we should be very skeptical of. To be honest, I know some people who do run their personal budget like that.
For my bar mitzvah, I spent a similar amount of time fixing up an old, old path in the woods. It used to be a hiking spot, but it fell into neglect. I walked along it, a group of girl scouts painted trail markers, and over the course of a year we had something new in a boring town.
College is a big problem. I'm in a public school, and tuition is rising rapidly. Something has to be done to fix things. And I like this plan a lot: it means that in exchange for $4,000 students are really expected to do a lot. A hundred hours of service means that a lot can be done. I doubt 10 million students would really take this offer - there are a lot of rich, lazy kids, and a lot of kids with scholarships - but if, hypothetically, 10 million kids each spent 100 hours doing community service, we'd have a billion hours a year being spent trying to fix up things around the country. That's a pretty incredible force.
And Obama hasn't delegated that money yet. He's proposed it, because he thinks it'll work. If you have another plan, one that you think will work better, there's a webform you can fill out to send your ideas. Who knows, it might be worth a shot.
I don't know about you, but I don't think I ever paid $4000 in tax during college. I spent what little free time I had at part-time jobs, but didn't earn much money. Most of my taxes were returned to me by the government for being a poor student.
100 hours of mandated community service is a tremendous amount. If you don't work during school, the tax credit is useless and if you do work during school, it reduces the number of hours you can work.
That being said, I did other activities that might qualify as volunteer work under this plan: I helped out with a local high school's FIRST robotics team.
"Create the American Opportunity Tax Credit: Obama and Biden will make college affordable for all Americans by creating a new American Opportunity Tax Credit. This universal and _fully refundable_ credit will ensure that the first $4,000 of a college education is completely free for most Americans, and will cover two-thirds the cost of tuition at the average public college or university and make community college tuition completely free for most students. Recipients of the credit will be required to conduct 100 hours of community service."