In good ol' election year 2008, there were about 8,000 Peace Corps volunteers. Candidate Obama promised to double that number by 2011. A whole year later, his 2010 budget is out and it calls for "9,000 Americans enrolled in the Peace Corps by the end of FY 2012 and 11,000 by the end of FY 2016." Epic fail.
Okay, technically he hasn't failed yet. He has until Dec. 31st, 2011 to turn things around. It's not impossible, but it's also not likely.
At least the promise was good. The Peace Corps has a long track record of helping people on an impressive scale in pursuing their goals of spreading technology and cultural understanding. Those rare times that criticism is leveled against the organization tend to be textbook examples of baseless bias (for example, Nixon claimed it was just a loophole for draft-dodgers, and a Colombian urban legend claims it was Peace Corps volunteers who first created cocaine from coca leaves).
Obama supports doubling the program as part of his efforts to make America popular in the international community. That overreaching goal is a little silly (It's better to be right than popular), but I can't fault the expansion of the Peace Corps itself and Americans doing substantial good seems like a good way to drum up international goodwill.
Overall, his promise was commendable but his failure isn't. Kinda the reverse of his national security promises.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
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