Really people, if ya wanna survive the next decade, ya better use Orthodox terminology regarding yer new civil religion.
end sarc

It diverts time and energy from actual productive activity – studying, learning useful skills and finding gainful employment. It also makes people accustomed to the belief that it is the job of government to “create jobs”. Unfortunately for us, government ditch digging programs don’t create wealth and paying these people will require taxing productive members of society, reducing their incentives to be productive and decreasing taxable revenue necessary to pay people on government work programs. See where I’m going with this? Heck, we could cut unemployment to zero if government just employs these people to water the lawn and then we will be in a situation like the soviet union where people pretend to work and the government pretends to pay them

.receive a universal and fully refundable tax credit ensuring that the first $4,000 of their college education is completely free.

Uh..no. It’s not free. They obviously will have to hand out ACORN fliers and submit to Obamabrainwashing to earn the credit. What is clear is that the value of what they receive and the value of the service they perform are at odds and the wealth taxed away from productive taxpayers to fund this idiocy will be used inefficiently. A more efficient use of those kids’ time would be to go find a job and not only be remunerated for their efforts but also learn the meaning of responsibility and accountability to an employer, who is in turn, accountable to its customers. The student will earn money while learning to please his fellow man. Who is ACORN accountable to? Whom does it have to please? What will the kid learn beyond dogma and propaganda? This is a funny twist. Obama wants to pay the college kids for their work but he’s totally against kids working their way through college (as I did – and I lived to tell about it. Oh my).

Have I read it wrongly? Why are most previous posts only talking about kids in school or college, when it says “citizens of all ages”?

I took it to mean that even I, at the ripe old age of 68, would have to visit a nearby school/college and clean floors or teach physics depending on my quals!

T.C.

it was not warren who changed the text but obama. i read the site last night and it was precisely as quoted.

I will be interested to see if he plans to extend the reach of this plan to educational institutions encouraging them (through tax treatment and funding) to place the requirements in place in lieu of the government.

I also note that a plan that had no cost associated with it may have just become quite expensive. there are 16 million college students in the US. 16 million = $64 billion
what % will take him up on it, I have not the slightest idea, but we can also look at this plan another way:

$4000 for 100 hours of work = $40/hour. that’s a pretty high pay rate for a 19 year old, and I’m sure many will game the system resulting in a higher actual hourly wage this is obviously about more than just getting service work done. if that was the goal, just pay $20/hour. load of people would sign up. (though perhaps that sort of WPA system is in the cards as well?)

I wonder if he will consider extending requirements or inducements such as these to other groups such as welfare recipients. now THAT seems to me a good idea. it provides a useful service, keeps people busy and engaged, and discourages milking the system. welfare and unemployment assistance are not rights, but rather services. attaching requirements to receiving seems a good idea (assuming you accept they are a good idea to begin with). anyone have a good argument against requiring say 10 hours a week of community service of those of working age receiving government unemployment benefits?