Obama (was) to require 100 hours of community service a year by college students

Re:Obama (was) to require 100 hours of community service a y... by tocomment on Friday November 07, 2008 @08:45PM (#357351)

I think the 5th, 9th, and 10th amendments of the United States bill of rights say that the government can't require us to do community service.

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Re:Obama (was) to require 100 hours of community service a y... by tocomment on Friday November 07, 2008 @08:49PM (#357359)

Actually the 13th admendment forbids this most explicitly:

Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

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Re:Obama (was) to require 100 hours of community service a y... by hugh on Friday November 07, 2008 @09:06PM (#357375)

It's not quite slavery, but it's walking an awfully fine line, especially since the value of the so-called "tax credit", at $40 an hour, by far exceeds the economic value of the work performed.

As a thought experiment, suppose the value of the "tax credit" were increased to $1000 an hour, so that you need to either do your 100 hours of community service or pay $100,000 extra in tax. Since the vast majority of us can't possibly afford to pay a $100,000 fine for not doing our "community service", this would in effect be a government-run slavery system.

At $4000 (forty bucks an hour for college students who otherwise be lucky to earn 25% of that) it's pretty borderline.

This policy was always one of my strongest reasons for opposing an Obama presidency. It's facepalm-worthy to find out that many of his supporters are only just finding out about this policy now.

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