senate

This just in from our friends at Rock the Vote:

Today, a group of United States Senators, lead by Michael Bennet of Colorado urged the U.S. Department of Justice to carefully review the highly restrictive photo ID laws that have been passed – or are under consideration – in states across the country. This is a huge development, and we hope the DOJ will use its authority granted by the Voting Rights Act to protect those who would be disenfranchised.

[...]

Senator Bennet’s letter was signed by Majority Leader Harry Reid (NV) and U.S. Sens. Dick Durbin (IL), Chuck Schumer (NY), Kirsten Gillibrand (NY), Sherrod Brown (OH), Jeanne Shaheen (NH), Jeff Merkley (OR), Mark Begich (AK), Ben Cardin (MD), Mary Landrieu (LA), Patty Murray (WA), Ron Wyden (OR), Tom Harkin (IA), Herb Kohl (WI) and Tom Udall (NM).

Since January, photo ID laws have been enacted in Wisconsin, South Carolina, Alabama, Texas, Kansas and Tennessee. In Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire and North Carolina, Governors have vetoed bills that passed their state legislatures; those vetoes likely will be challenged with override votes in New Hampshire and North Carolina. Ohio and Pennsylvania are actively considering proposals, joining over 30 states that have introduced legislation to require only government-issued photo IDs at the polls.

Bennet's letter is provided below:

Dear Attorney General Holder:

We are writing to express our concerns about highly restrictive photo identification requirements under consideration or already signed into law in several states. These measures have the potential to block millions of eligible American voters without addressing any problem commensurate with this kind of restriction on voting rights. Studies have shown that as high as 11% of eligible voters nationwide do not have a government-issued ID. This percentage is higher for seniors, racial minorities, low-income voters and students. Voting is the foundation of our democracy, and we urge you to protect the voting rights of Americans by using the full power of the Department of Justice to review these voter identification laws and scrutinize their implementation.

Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act vests significant authority in the Department to review laws before they are implemented in covered jurisdictions. As you know, the burden of proof in this preclearance process is on those covered jurisdictions, which must be able to show that legal changes will not have a discriminatory impact on minority voters. New photo identification laws, for instance, must be subjected to the highest scrutiny as states justify these new barriers to participation. In Section 5 jurisdictions, whenever photo identification legislation is considered, the Department should closely monitor the legislative process to track any unlawful intent evinced by the proceedings.

Restrictive photo identification requirements are also being considered or have passed in states and jurisdictions that are not covered by Section 5. The Department should exercise vigilance in overseeing whether these laws are implemented in a way that discriminates against protected classes in violation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. Additionally, federal civil rights law – 42 U.S.C. 1971(a)(2)- prohibits different standards, practices or procedures from being applied to individuals within a jurisdiction. We believe the Department should ensure that these photo identification laws do not violate this statute or other federal voting rights statutes.

Highly restrictive photo identification requirements at the polls can make it more difficult for well-intentioned voters to cast their ballots, and as far as America’s civil rights trajectory is concerned, that sort of effect takes America in the wrong direction. We urge you to exercise your authority to examine these laws so that voting rights are not jeopardized. We also request that you brief us on the efforts the Department is undertaking to ensure these new laws are implemented in accordance with the Voting Rights Act.

Thank you for your work protecting the civil rights of all Americans.

These new laws and proposals, largely from Republicans, target constituencies that are traditionally unfriendly to the GOP and that were, in fact, a large piece of the coalition voting Obama and Democrats into office in 2008. Rock the Vote has been great at covering this story and advocating for the voting rights of young voters in these states. We at Future Majority echo RTV's call for the Department of Justice to intervene and safeguard the voting rights of the poor, of minorities, and of young people.

At a Thursday Senate hearing on mobile privacy, Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) told us how he really feels.

In an exchange with Facebook's Bret Taylor, who was testifying in front of the Senate Commerce Committee, Rockefeller told Taylor he did not believe Facebook CEO and Founder Mark Zuckerberg had consumer privacy in mind when starting the website and company. Why? Well, you see, it's apparently connected to young people's lack of social values. Or at least that's what Rockefeller thinks:

"It's my general feeling that people who are 20, 21, 22 years old really don't have any social values," Rockefeller told Facebook's Bret Taylor, who was testifying at a Senate hearing on mobile privacy Thursday.

"No, it's true," he added after the audience laughed.

No, it's not true.

Is it just me, or is it getting old watching people make decisions about this newfangled technology who either don't get or don't want to accept the paradigm shift that comes along with it?

As Taylor explained in his testimony,

'Facebook is fundamentally about sharing, and adopting overly restrictive policies will prevent our social features from functioning in the way that individuals expect and demand.'

I respect Rockefeller's passion for addressing privacy issues, but passing the "Do Not Track" bill, which would create a "universal legal obligation" for companies to honor users' opt-out requests on the Internet and mobile devices, and would enable the Federal Trade Commission to act against non-compliant companies, carries consequences.

While Facebook has indeed had its share of privacy issues--rolling out and then canceling a controversial data sharing service to advertisers called Beacon, and then developing the News Feed that published each user's activity for their friends to see--the fundamental premise of the site is indeed sharing. That extends to every piece of the Web 2.0 infrastructure. And so, when one takes a hammer and wails away at large problems, like privacy, the effort's not going to be as effective as it could be if she or he took time to understand the peripheral issues. Perhaps Rockefeller, who loves wielding that gavel, could ask one of the 81 people on Facebook who like him (one of them is bound to be young and soulless) what some of those complications might be.

Of course, we know that young people--those who served on his campaign, those who staff his office, those who serve in the military, those undertaking entrepreneurial efforts to raise quality of life, those teaching and serving abroad and at home--do have social values. In fact, all over this site, one can see that if it weren't for the social values of young people, Barack Obama wouldn't be President.

Interestingly, it was only three and a half years ago when Rockefeller disregarded his espoused value of privacy and proceeded to lead the effort to give immunity to those telecommunications companies who warrantlessly spied on Americans. How's that for a flip-flop?

In the end, Rockefeller can fight for the legislation he's championing--even if he doesn't understand the consequences. But to say that young people lack social values when you don't even know what yours are is ridiculous.

Here is a letter sent to Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) on behalf of a coalition of youth activist organizations fighting the good fight on health reform:

September 25, 2009

The Honorable Max Baucus
H-232, US Capitol
Washington, DC 20515

Dear Senator Baucus:

We are writing on behalf of organizations representing young Americans across the country whose lives will be dramatically impacted by health care reform. We applaud many of the aims of America’s Healthy Future Act, particularly efforts to provide universal coverage to all Americans.

However the current legislation falls short on a number of key provisions that must be addressed. We urge you to make health insurance more affordable for young Americans by expanding the income range eligible for subsidies and lowering the caps on the percentage of income individuals might pay for premiums. We urge you to allow young adults to remain on their parents’ insurance policy until the age of 26 so as to reduce gaps in coverage and preserve continuity of care. We also urge you to add a public option to make the new health insurance exchanges more competitive and lower costs for young consumers. We strongly believe that comprehensive, affordable health insurance should be available to all Americans, young and old.

We are aware of the inclusion of a “young invincible” plan in the current legislation that is “effectively a catastrophic with no coverage below the HSA out-of-pocket limit except for preventive benefits and
services.” (Snowe Amendment #F5 accepted into the Chairman’s Mark) While we believe the focus should be on improving subsidies so everyone can afford comprehensive coverage, if the “young invincible” provision must be in the legislation it needs to include certain key provisions:

• The HSA limit is now $3,000 and is far too high a deductible for even healthy young Americans. Common injuries that need treatment could spell financial ruin for young Americans, 80% of whom earn less than $40,000 per year. The allowable deductible should be significantly lowered.
• “Preventive benefits and services” must be defined broadly to include a wide variety of common preventive treatments including regular check-ups, screenings, and gynecological visits.
• The plan must include coverage for chronic conditions that impact those 18-34, such as asthma, diabetes, hypertension, and sinusitis, which would not count against the deductible. Over 15% of young
Americans deal with chronic health care problems. Without access to proper case management, not only do they suffer but it costs the system in the long-run.

Thank you for your leadership on this issue. Young people are counting on you to deliver on the promise of reform and a better future for all Americans.

Sincerely,

18 in ‘08
80 Million Strong
Advocates for Youth
Black Youth Vote
Bus Federation
Campus Progress
Daily Get Up
Forward Montana
Rock the Vote
Student Association for Voter Empowerment
Young Invincibles

While Baucus's track record doesn't give much hope to the letter having much of an effect on the legislative output, there's a bigger fight than what might happen with Baucus's legislation being discussed in the Senate Finance Committee this week. As this Times piece seems to indicate, there's some kind of latent momentum going for the public option outside of the more conservative Finance Committee, thanks to the GOP:

The Senate floor, and certainly a conference with the more liberal House, will be more receptive arenas, Mr. Schumer and others predict. Ultimately, the liberals in Congress, as well as their allies in organized labor, expect to be able to shape the final product more than they had hoped just weeks ago.

That unnerves the more conservative Democrats, many of them from Republican-leaning districts and states.

Liberals have been emboldened by two factors. One is the failure of Senator Max Baucus of Montana, a more conservative Democrat who heads the Finance Committee, to get any Republicans to support his draft legislation, after months of trying. That doomed President Obama’s goal of bipartisan backing for a health care overhaul, and now leaves party liberals arguing for a distinctly Democratic health plan.

“One of the strongest arguments against a public option has been that the Republicans will never go for it,” Mr. Schumer said. “Well, the Baucus bill doesn’t have a public option, and they’re still not for it in any way, with the possible exception of Olympia Snowe,” a moderate Republican senator from Maine, who has not ruled out supporting the overhaul that Mr. Obama is seeking.

The second development that has encouraged liberals is recent polling, including some done for The New York Times and CBS News in the last week, that gives Democrats a clear edge over Republicans as the party favored to deal with health care issues. The same polls show significant support for a public option despite months of criticism from Republicans, who describe it as a government takeover of health insurance.

Should Schumer be successful in staging a larger debate following all committee deliberations when the legislation is on the Senate floor, the stipulations made in the youth coalition letter appear to have a larger chance of being incorporated into the final Senate bill.

The best thing for everyone to do at this point is to bombard your respective senators and make sure they understand why youth want the public option, as well as the other caveats made in the letter above.

As the Senate prepares to follow the lead set by the House of Representatives and tackle global warming through a comprehensive climate change bill, a new poll shows young voters are united behind this action, no matter their party affliation.

The poll, released by the Clean Energy Works Campaign, campaign shows that 68% of those polled say "investing in renewable energy to create new jobs" should be an important priority for their Senator to address and 69% say they would be more likely to re-elect their Senator if he or she votes for the bill.

"Poll after poll shows that the American public strongly backs comprehensive clean energy legislation," said Maura Cowley, Clean Energy Works campaign youth coordinator in a press release. "This latest poll shows that America's youth—regardless of their party affiliation—stand strongly behind the president's clean energy agenda and are now looking to Congress for urgent action. It's time for the Senate to act on a clean energy and climate plan that delivers more jobs, less pollution, and greater security."

Click here to write to your senators today and encourage them to pass comprehensive climate change legislation this year!

Also, check out this new website to see just exactly what is at stake for our generation and how you can take action!

Last Friday, the Roosevelt Institution convened the Rx Summit, focusing on health care and young Americans. At this event I made my first attempt at live-tweeting (thanks to Sarah for compiling my tweets for FM), which you should check out for quotes and some mind-blowing statistics from a number of great speakers including, Sara Rosenbaum, Director of GWU Health Policy Department, Joshua Ulibarri, Lake Research Partners, and Lauren Aronson, Policy Director for the White House Office for Healthcare Reform. I also had a chance to sit down with Melinda Gibson of Health Care for America Now, who was a presenter at the Rx Summit, to ask, 'what's wrong and how do we fix it'? In short, Melinda argues that it's all about consumer choice and that choice is coming this year with or without 60 votes from the Senate. She expects legislation to be introduced this month - yes, April.

FutureMajority: What's wrong with the current health insurance options?

Melinda Gibson, Health Care for America Now: The insurance industry over-bills by 300%. So, we know that insurance companies are fleecing the American government (i.e. MEDICARE Advantage). They have created a system where they’ve watered down [basic] Medicare plans to force people to buy supplemental insurance plans to make up for the deficient basic plans--this is how the insurance industry is over billing the government for billions of dollars.

It's like a la carte health options, which will force struggling families and individuals to make some tough, tough decisions when it comes to their health. (To wit: folks get sick and have to miss work, making it difficult to keep up with mounting health care costs. Repeat until PHIP is passed.)

FM: How are you communicating PHIP to the public, will they see it as socialized medicine like in 2007?

MG: In SCHIP [State's Children's Health Insurance Plan], in 2007, the house bill created a medicare advantage reform, to pay for the [budget] increase. They claimed it was 'socialized medicine'. The notion of 'socialized medicine' doesn’t even resonate with the American people anymore. Now, think about the public health insurance plan. The first thing we need to understand is that this [the private health insurance industry] is not a free market. The insurance companies compete on terms that they have deemed acceptable to them. Their first priority is to make as much money as possible. Americans want a true choice; they want their choice of plans and doctors. We want access to quality baseline benefits, and allow people to choose between public and private plans.

FM: What is reconciliation and why is it important to pass PHIP?

MG: I think 60 votes is possible [the minimum number of votes required to pass PHIP], but at this point in the game it’s very hard. The likelihood of coming out of the Senate with legislation that is truly progressive and affordable…with 60 votes will be very, very difficult. We cannot let this minority of Republican Senators prevent those who are struggling from choosing a health care plan that fits their needs. So, without 60 votes, this is where reconciliation comes in. We want the option of a straight up or down vote on health care this year. Keep in mind that 80 percent of President Obama's ads during the campaign included health care, because he and his staff knew that health care is the issue. Americans are completely uninsured. Every 30 seconds, 1 American goes bankrupt from medical insurance costs.

FM: Will PHIP pass this year?

MG: This is gonna happen; it's coming this year. We talk about how hard it’s gonna be, but this is it. In speaking about health care legislation, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus said, "There's never been a better moment." So it’s not just the President, but leaders of Congress are also behind this legislation."

If you're looking for more nuts and bolts on PHIP, check out Jacob Hacker's new report detailing the idea of the public plan choice. Below is an excerpt from the executive summary.

The debate over health care reform has increasingly centered on the issue of “public plan choice”—whether Americans younger than 65 who lack employment-based coverage should have the choice of enrolling in a new public health insurance plan modeled after Medicare. The central argument for public plan choice is that such a plan, offered as a choice within a new national insurance “exchange,” provides an essential set of security guarantees, ensuring that Americans without insurance from their place of work can find a plan that offers them quality, affordable health care through a broad choice of providers in all parts of the country.
[...]
Public plan choice is rooted in existing precedents that have shown themselves to work, rather than speculative convictions about how a delicately balanced new system will operate. It must be part of any successful reform package. Without public plan choice, Americans without workplace insurance will be put in jeopardy, private insurers will lack an effective check on their actions, and the opportunity to place our crumbling framework of health financing on a secure foundation will be lost.

Last Friday, the Roosevelt Institution convened the Rx Summit, focusing on health care and young Americans. At this event I made my first attempt at live-tweeting (thanks to Sarah for compiling my tweets for FM), which you should check out for quotes and some mind-blowing statistics from a number of great speakers including, Sara Rosenbaum, Director of GWU Health Policy Department, Joshua Ulibarri, Lake Research Partners, and Lauren Aronson, Policy Director for the White House Office for Healthcare Reform. I also had a chance to sit down with Melinda Gibson of Health Care for America Now, who was a presenter at the Rx Summit, to ask, 'what's wrong and how do we fix it'? In short, Melinda argues that it's all about consumer choice and that choice is coming this year with or without 60 votes from the Senate. She expects legislation to be introduced this month - yes, April.

FutureMajority: What's wrong with the current health insurance options?

Melinda Gibson, Health Care for America Now: The insurance industry over-bills by 300%. So, we know that insurance companies are fleecing the American government (i.e. MEDICARE Advantage). They have created a system where they’ve watered down [basic] Medicare plans to force people to buy supplemental insurance plans to make up for the deficient basic plans--this is how the insurance industry is over billing the government for billions of dollars.

It's like a la carte health options, which will force struggling families and individuals to make some tough, tough decisions when it comes to their health. (To wit: folks get sick and have to miss work, making it difficult to keep up with mounting health care costs. Repeat until PHIP is passed.)

FM: How are you communicating PHIP to the public, will they see it as socialized medicine like in 2007?

MG: In SCHIP [State's Children's Health Insurance Plan], in 2007, the house bill created a medicare advantage reform, to pay for the [budget] increase. They claimed it was 'socialized medicine'. The notion of 'socialized medicine' doesn’t even resonate with the American people anymore. Now, think about the public health insurance plan. The first thing we need to understand is that this [the private health insurance industry] is not a free market. The insurance companies compete on terms that they have deemed acceptable to them. Their first priority is to make as much money as possible. Americans want a true choice; they want their choice of plans and doctors. We want access to quality baseline benefits, and allow people to choose between public and private plans.

FM: What is reconciliation and why is it important to pass PHIP?

MG: I think 60 votes is possible [the minimum number of votes required to pass PHIP], but at this point in the game it’s very hard. The likelihood of coming out of the Senate with legislation that is truly progressive and affordable…with 60 votes will be very, very difficult. We cannot let this minority of Republican Senators prevent those who are struggling from choosing a health care plan that fits their needs. So, without 60 votes, this is where reconciliation comes in. We want the option of a straight up or down vote on health care this year. Keep in mind that 80 percent of President Obama's ads during the campaign included health care, because he and his staff knew that health care is the issue. Americans are completely uninsured. Every 30 seconds, 1 American goes bankrupt from medical insurance costs.

FM: Will PHIP pass this year?

MG: This is gonna happen; it's coming this year. We talk about how hard it’s gonna be, but this is it. In speaking about health care legislation, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus said, "There's never been a better moment." So it’s not just the President, but leaders of Congress are also behind this legislation."

If you're looking for more nuts and bolts on PHIP, check out Jacob Hacker's new report detailing the idea of the public plan choice. Below is an excerpt from the executive summary.

The debate over health care reform has increasingly centered on the issue of “public plan choice”—whether Americans younger than 65 who lack employment-based coverage should have the choice of enrolling in a new public health insurance plan modeled after Medicare. The central argument for public plan choice is that such a plan, offered as a choice within a new national insurance “exchange,” provides an essential set of security guarantees, ensuring that Americans without insurance from their place of work can find a plan that offers them quality, affordable health care through a broad choice of providers in all parts of the country.
[...]
Public plan choice is rooted in existing precedents that have shown themselves to work, rather than speculative convictions about how a delicately balanced new system will operate. It must be part of any successful reform package. Without public plan choice, Americans without workplace insurance will be put in jeopardy, private insurers will lack an effective check on their actions, and the opportunity to place our crumbling framework of health financing on a secure foundation will be lost.

One more obstacle cleared for the GIVE Act.

Today the Senate passed the cloture vote on H.R. 1388 by a vote of 74-14. The Times blog The Caucus has more:

From President Kennedy’s days to the creation of Americorps by then President Bill Clinton, the notion of public service has become a rallying cry. Tonight’s vote, propelled by President Obama’s urging of an expansion, would mean a growth in such work from 75,000 community service jobs to 250,000.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, the cost of the Senate bill at least would be an outlay for the fiscal year 2010 of $418 million to about $5.7 billion from 2010 through 2014.

It’s an historic vote in the sense that a national service corps, an army dispersed to help with education, health services and the environment, would vastly enlarge the notion of “community organizing,” and allow, as Senator Barbara Mikulski, Democrat of Maryland, said tonight, for about 7 million people to be engaged in such work.

The bill enjoyed extraordinary bipartisan support, including namely the major co-sponsor, Senator Orrin Hatch, Republican of Utah, who tonight even recommended reading the biography of R. Sargent Shriver, relative by marriage to the Kennedys and who directed the original Peace Corps from 1961 to 1966.

The writeup notes that several Republicans voted against it because it cost too much. Go figure.

Update: Quick update. I just got off the phone with an activist in Nebraska who provided some clarity on Nelson's statements. It's not just Pell Grants that Nelson is opposed to, nor are they going to make or break his decision on supporting the stimulus. Rather, as a more conservative Democrat from a Red State, he has a more narrow definition than other Democrats as to what constitutes stimulus. Accordingly, he'd rather that items like the Pell Grants be taken out and put into a different piece of legislation.

That's fair enough. I can respect that fact that Nelson may need to take more conservative positions due to the ideological make-up of the Nebraska electorate. And maybe we should cut him some slack for that. The flipside to this, though, is that Nelson has a history of fighting with the youth community on this issue and he shouldn't be slamming Pell Grants in the media. That's not going to build up youth support for Democratic candidates in Nebraska.

FYI, I altered the original title of this post to reflect these updates.
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Think Progress is reporting that Senator Ben Nelson, (D - Neb) may vote against the stimulus if it contains provisions for increasing Pell Grants:

College students sought financial aid in record numbers last year, leading even Bush administration officials to call for an increase in Pell Grant funding — “the most important form of aid to needy students.”

Yet Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) is arguing against the House version of the economic recovery package because of its funding for Pell Grants. Nelson says he wants to eliminate “non-stimulative” and non-“job creation” items in the bill:

Even some Democrats are speaking out against including popular programs — such as an almost $15 billion increase in funding for Pell grants for higher education — in legislation that is supposed to spark an economic recovery. “You don’t want to be against Pell grants,” said Sen. Ben. Nelson (D-Neb.). “But the question is: How many people go to work on Pell grants?”

This is not the first time Nelson has been on the wrong side of education policy. In 2007, during the passage of the Higher Education Access Act, Nelson tried to weaken the bill and provide billions in subsidies to corporate lenders like Nelnet. At the time, US PIRG released this statement on an amendment proposed by Nelson to the Higher Education Access Act (link to US PIRG site no longer functions):

The Nelson-Burr Amendment cuts $4.2 billion from need-based aid to low-income students over the next five years and gives the bulk of it to for-profit student lenders.

The Nelson-Burr amendment reduces aid for the neediest students by $290 per year, or nearly $1200 over their 4-year college career.

The amendment lowers the subsidy reduction for-profit lenders from .5 percent to .35 percent and pays for it by cutting $4.2 billion from the Promise Grant program.

The Nelson-Burr amendment takes grants away from low-income students and gives it back to banks including:

• $800 million to Sallie Mae over the next 5 years.
• $160 million to Nelnet over the next 5 years.

The Senate bill reduces less from private student lenders than both the President’s Fiscal Year 2008 budget and the House reconciliation bill. The Nelson-Burr amendment would cut back on subsidies even further, at the expense of the more than five million students who receive Pell Grants every year.

U.S. PIRG urges Senators to vote against the Nelson-Burr Amendment to S. 1762

Today, Nelson is just as wrong in his statements on Pell Grants in the stimulus. Worse, he's parroting Republican talking points on the issue. Just last week, the Chronicle of Higher Education reported that the GOP had fixated on Pell Grants as a key whipping boy in their offensive against the stimulus package:

The entire stimulus package will have much less to offer colleges and students (and beneficiaries of many other social programs) if Congressional Republicans have their way. In speeches and television appearances over the weekend, Sen. John McCain of Arizona and Rep. John Boehner of Ohio, both of whom are prominent members of the minority in their respective chambers, criticized the Democrats’ stimulus packages for greatly emphasizing spending that may or may not spark the economy rather than tax breaks that would put money directly into consumers’ and businesses’ pockets.

Boehner specifically singled out aid for education in his criticism. “[P]roviding $300 billion of this package to states — $166 billion in direct aid to the states, another $140 billion in education funding — this is not going to do anything, anything to stimulate our economy, to help the — our ailing economy,” the Ohio Republican said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

As Think Progress accurately points out, and as we reported here on Future Majority last week, these arguments are bunk. Increases to Pell Grants are absolutely a form of stimulus in both the long- and short-term. They will be spent immediately on tuition, books, and in local economies where students live. They will allow young Americans and older ones looking for a leg-up the opportunity to get a better education and increase their employment prospects.

Once again Sen. Nelson is on the wrong side of this issue. I think it's time he hears from some of his younger constituents struggling to attend school and make ends meet in this economy.

The Serve America Act has been reintroduced in the Senate this session by Senators Ted Kennedy and Orrin Hatch (S.277) and referred to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.

The New York Times highlighted it in an editorial last Monday, arguing that, at a cost of $5 billion, the bill would be a thrifty, yet apt partner to the $825 billion stimulus package that the Congress is looking to pass. The Times also points out that Serve America matches the call for a "spirit of service" that Obama sounded in his inaugural address.

Kennedy and Hatch want to increase the number of full- and part-time volunteers national service volunteers to 250,000 from its current number of 75,000. The editorial goes on to describe the other contents of the bill.

The new positions would be devoted to meeting challenges in a handful of targeted areas: tackling the dropout crisis, strengthening schools, improving health care and economic opportunity in low-income communities, cleaning up parks, aiding efforts to boost energy efficiency, and responding to disasters and emergencies.

The Serve America Act is structured to invite participation by people of all income levels and ages, including retirees. It would offer tax incentives for employers who allow employees to take paid leave for full-time service, and permit older individuals to transfer their education awards to a child or grandchild. A new Volunteer Generation Fund would help nonprofit groups recruit and manage an expanding pool of volunteers.

This legislation dovetails with Obama's emphasis on responsibility and shared sacrifice. It would create additional jobs and continually improve our infrastructure and way of life. This is a fantastic opportunity for the government to invest in the citizenry, especially given the rise of the volunteer-heavy Millennial Generation and the popularity of President Obama's message.

Further reading:

Press release from Senator Kennedy's office

Summary of the bill

The House and Senate have just opened a new YouTube channel designed to be a hub for members and their youtube videos communicating to the people.

I remember a time when members couldn't put video on their site unless it was hosted by the House servers! Ohhh boy those were the days, weren't they! With Congress back in session it seems the leadership is breaking out those swanky new franking rules and bringing forth the connectivity to the people.... particularly young people.

The swanky google map ain't too bad either. What's next?! Speaker tweeting more than just the blog's RSS feed? Oh I can only dream....

I want to say a special note of thanks to all of the people who worked these past few years at pushing our elected officials and the leadership toward moments like these. Without folks at the Sunlight Foundation and all the bloggers out there demanding connectivity and transparency online. Now if we can only get the state governments to do the same. Miles to go before we sleep, but victories like these sure make it easier to soldier on.