MORE PAID VOLUNTEERS

President Bill Clinton's most recent proposal in welfare reform is a real doozy. Emphasizing the work requirement in the welfare reform bill sent him by the Republican Congress, he is asking America's churches to hire welfare recipients to work in jobs that would be paid for by state governments.

It isn't clear how this would work. President Clinton seems to have tossed off the idea rather casually in speaking recently to the National Baptist Convention USA, which represents some 33,000 black churches. "Will you do that?" Clinton implored the church delegates. "Will you go home and consider hiring somebody from welfare to work if your state will give you some money to help you do it?"

Remember, this is the president who gave us the continuing boondoggle of Americorps. The "volunteers" who populate Americorps projects across America are known to have cost taxpayers approximately $27,000 each, according to the Congressional Budget Office. This factors in all the bureaucratic costs involved in the program. The "volunteers" make something like $7 per hour for their "volunteer" work.

Where would the money come from to pay the welfare recipients for their new jobs under the supervision of these churches? It sounds suspiciously like another unfunded mandate from the federal government, forcing states to accept this huge new responsibility. This president seems totally disconnected from reality, campaigning far and wide and dropping half-baked ideas such as this without any details. The Americorps experience hasn't been a confidence builder. Americans should scrutinize this one very closely indeed.