The Peace Investment

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What’s going on with funding for the Peace Corps?
 
Nearly a year ago, several news reports noted that the Peace Corps was being funded through a continuing resolution.
 
But a Google news search doesn’t turn up anything recent. This is from a Huffington Post piece last February:
 
When I listened to President Obama's powerful address before Congress, I kept waiting for him to talk about his pledge to double the size of the Peace Corps. But he said nothing. The president is a brilliant man with an extraordinary sense of detail. His omission was clearly a willful choice. I say this in part because the continuing resolution for the 2009 fiscal year budgets $340 million for the Peace Corps, only $9 million more than for the current fiscal year. At best that will leave the organization standing in place.
 
To be sure, any commitment of additional funding raises the issue of Peace Corps’ accountability. For instance, instead of using hard numbers to measure its progress toward literacy and disease prevention, the Peace Corps relies on soft data such as survey results (pdf).
 
That said, the number of applications to the Peace Corps increased by 40 percent this year. Surely that reflects some recognition of the value of the Peace Corps mission and could be a nod to Obama's (at least verbal) support of such volunteer efforts.
 
It is also likely a sign of the weak economy. So given the continued trouble Americans are having finding jobs, will the Peace Corps receive a funding increase in 2010? The cost of the current stimulus program is about $246,000 per saved or created job--an inexact number to be sure, but it is no more “calculator abuse” (as the White House put it) than “saved jobs” is dictionary abuse.
 
What do Peace Corps volunteers receive after two years of service? A $6,000 readjustment allowance, which is counted as income and taxed.
 
Obama pledged during his campaign to double the size of the Peace Corps, but he has since backed off that promise, according to PolitiFact.
 
(For  what it’s worth, PolitiFact--though a noble project that would ideally extend in a nonpartisan manner to all members of Congress--could use a little refining on its Obameter. Obama has explicitly backed away from his Peace Corps pledge, which strikes me as something other than “stalled” progress.)
 
We have record numbers of people unemployed, tons of young people without work and unable to pay back student loans, and unmet global needs that can be provided for in a way that builds goodwill toward the United States.
 
Opportunity knocks.
 
(Image by Amcaja; Peace Corps volunteer helps Cameroonian children paint a mural)
 
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