Jack Kingston: “It is interesting as we look at these things. I want to talk to the gentleman about the budget. When he says the…”

“It is interesting as we look at these things. I want to talk to the gentleman about the budget. When he says the taxpayers are paying, one of the things that they have to pay for is the administration of this ridiculous program. Another thing taxpayers are paying for is AmeriCorps. AmeriCorps takes kids who are volunteering and pays them. Now it is interesting. The President has this volunteer summit going on this week in Washington. And Americans are great volunteers. I believe the statistic that I read, 90 million Americans volunteer 4 hours a week each and every week, and that includes people who make and bill out $4 or $5 an hour to people would bill out $300 or $400 an hour. Everyone likes to volunteer in America and participate, and it is one of the great things about our country. Yet, the President's main program has been to take young children and start paying them to do what their older brothers and sisters and parents have been volunteering to do. Now the cost for that and the President's justification is that it is an idea to get them interested in participating; it helps them with student loans and so forth. And yet, the cost per student is $26,000, Mr. Speaker, for volunteers; and the student only gets $1,500 of that. Where is the difference? The bureaucracy. Once again, we have a program that is doing nothing but growing the bureaucracy.”