Citizen Service

Sharing Service

Every citizen of voting age would be required to spend one day per week engaged in service to the community. Service tasks could be almost anything, though the basic concept would be to make people's lives better in some fashion. Some examples might be:
  • Transportation for senior citizens
  • Maintenance of public parks and other facilities
  • Various types of support for the destitute and homeless
  • Job training and re-training
  • Tutoring children and adults
  • Management of the program

Exemptions

The basic intent would be for everyone to participate.

One of the goals of the program would be to assist those in need. This would include the sick, the homeless, and the financially disadvantaged. Requiring these people to participate would be unfair and somewhat defeat the purpose of the program.

Obviously there are a lot of people who are already giving back to their community in various ways. These people should be able to register the time they're already spending.

To this end there should be exemptions from service such as:
  • Active duty military
  • Persons making less than a minimum income
  • Persons too sick or elderly to participate
  • Those with crippling mental disorders
  • Convicted felons (of certain crimes, e.g. sex offenders)
  • Those who opt for a higher tax rate instead of service
These exemptions would need to be strictly defined. There are a lot of possible tasks for people who are merely old or disabled but otherwise able to staff an information desk at city hall or help in the organization of the program.

Sharing Jobs

All of these services would be without remuneration. There is an expectation that citizens would work less to make time. The result should be a large number of new jobs, albeit with less hours. Instead of 100 workers five days a week companies would need 125 workers four days a week and flexible scheduling.

These wouldn't be low-level jobs flipping hamburgers or scrubbing toilets. The people working at minimum wage jobs would be those in need, and thereby exempt from service. The jobs that would come free would be skilled, professional jobs, not just jobs but good jobs. Service jobs would include training people for more skilled jobs.

This is perhaps the most difficult aspect. Employers can't afford to pay the same amount of money for a four-day work week, so participation in the program would result in less take-home pay. People would have to be willing to make a commitment to their country, their neighbors, and the future.

Employers would see increased costs at the same time employees see reduced paychecks. The overhead associated with 20% more employees for health insurance, additional office space, and so forth would have to come from somewhere. This would drive up costs even further in the near term. In the long run, however, companies would benefit from a larger potential work force.

Flexibility is important. Some people might want to work for four years and then take a year off for more intensive service. This would be managed in the way taxation can be spread out of multiple years in some cases (e.g. five years writing a book which sells in a single year).

Sharing Community

It is possible to live one's entire life within a 100 mile radius and know virtually nothing about the people in the next town or state. The specialization of our workplaces and communities allows us to live very specialized lives.
            
Service tasks would change that for many people. Most of them would involve working with a more diverse group of people, either helping them to make a better life or working side by side on large efforts. Participants would be introduced to a larger slice of life in any event.
            
Working with people from all walks of life should have some subtle effects. It's hard to be mad at people helping maintain our country. Service should make all of us aware of who we are and what makes America great. If nothing else, it would give us all something to gripe about, and nothing ties people together better than a shared sense of sacrifice.

Choose Taxes

Some people with no other exemptions would not want to participate for one reason or another. Those people would be able to choose to pay a higher tax rate, for example a flat 10% addition to whatever rate they would normally have. This money would be earmarked for program expenses.

Funding the Program

Program funding should be available from two sources. First, the program should eliminate a number of government-funded jobs. Why pay to have a neighborhood park maintained when local citizens
are responsible for its maintenance (and doubly motivated because they actually use it)? The displaced workers should be applying for better jobs available due to the program as described above.

Second, there would be some people who would opt to pay higher taxes. It's hard to say how many people would choose higher taxation over participation. It seems inevitable that some people would choose to pay rather than play, which would provide funding for some or all of the program.

One might argue that the latter would simply allow the wealthy to buy out. This has been happening in any number of contexts throughout history. Should we consider this ultimately unfair or rejoice in the funding? There is some question as to whether the wealthy would opt out in droves, simply because they have more to lose by accepting higher taxes.

The real issue would be whether the middle class, with less to lose, would opt out in large numbers, rendering the program less effective. Careful regulation of the tax rates would be necessary to motivate the proper number of people to join vs. pay.

For those who view this proposal as a kind of forced labor, with rich people opting out as always, reverse the process. Think of it as higher taxes for all, with the option of engaging in community service as a way to lower taxes. Sometimes it's just a matter of perspective.

What Could We Do?

Consider for a moment the kinds of things that could be done with a work force of fifty million or more volunteers. What would we do if everyone wanted to join in? Obviously it would take a bit to build the program and sort out who does what. But what a problem to have! The real question is what could we get done?
            
One of the things that got me thinking about this plan was driving around with my father several years ago. We were driving around Yorktown Battlefield in Virginia, and he pointed out that the outlying areas were no longer mowed on any obvious schedule.* "I'd do it myself," he said, "but it would probably be illegal."
            
That's kind of it in a nutshell. Here was a federal park that needed attention and a man who wanted to make things better. Sure, he was retired and had time on his hands, but what if everyone had that time? What if we could all work together to clean up our communities, help the helpless, and generally re-create the country together?

What would you do with your service?

* Apparently some of those fields aren't mowed because they contain endangered onions.
Location: Bellevue, WA 98008, USA

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