Clinton Wants $48 Million Increase in Peace Corps Funding



Clinton Wants $48 Million Increase in Peace Corps Funding

Clinton Wants $48 Million Increase in Peace Corps Funding

President Clinton enjoys some golf on St. Thomas Island

WASHINGTON (AllPolitics, Jan. 3) -- President Bill Clinton says he'll ask Congress to approve a $48 million funding increase for the Peace Corps, an agency he described as "one of the finest examples of citizen service."

Clinton, who is on vacation in the U.S. Virgin Islands, outlined his plan for the 37-year-old volunteer agency Saturday during his weekly radio address.

He called for bipartisan support for putting 10,000 Peace Corps workers overseas by the year 2000.

"In a world where we're more and more affected by what happens beyond our borders, we have to work harder to overcome the divisions that undermine the integrity and quality of life around the world, as well as here at home," Clinton said.

"Strengthening the Peace Corps ... is both an opportunity and an obligation we should seize in 1998."

Clinton's proposed funding increase would represent a 50 percent hike in the Peace Corps' budget, the largest in the agency's history.

President John F. Kennedy founded the Peace Corps in 1961. Today, its volunteers work in newly democratized countries to educate residents about entrepreneurship and the free-market system, among other assignments, Clinton said.

First-family vacation closes Sunday

The president's speech came near the end of his family's six-day vacation stay at two resort towns this week. The Clintons began their vacation Tuesday on Hilton Head Island in South Carolina, then traveled to St. Thomas Thursday.

Clinton played a round of golf Saturday on St. Thomas, an island between the Atlantic and the Caribbean where he, wife Hillary, daughter Chelsea and dog Buddy are staying. They are scheduled to wrap up their trip Sunday.

Clinton was briefed Saturday morning on the rocket-propelled grenade attack on United Nations headquarters in Baghdad that occurred late Friday, White House spokesman Joe Lockhart said.

The United States condemned the attack and urged an investigation, Lockhart added.

When this story was posted in October 2004, this was on the front page of PCOL:

Kerry reaches out to Returned Volunteers The Kerry campaign wants the RPCV vote. Read our interview with Dave Magnani, Massachusetts State Senator and Founder of "RPCVs for Kerry," and his answers to our questions about Kerry's plan to triple the size of the Peace Corps, should the next PC Director be an RPCV, and Safety and Security issues. Then read the "RPCVs for Kerry" statement of support and statements by Dr. Robert Pastor, Ambassador Parker Borg, and Paul Oostburg Sanz made at the "RPCVs for Kerry" Press Conference. RPCV Carl Pope says the key to winning this election is not swaying undecided voters, but persuading those already willing to vote for your candidate to actually go to the polls. Take our poll and tell us what you are doing to support your candidate. Finally read our wrap-up of the eight RPCVs in Senate and House races around the country and where the candidates are in their races.

---

Director Gaddi Vasquez: The PCOL Interview PCOL sits down for an extended interview with Peace Corps Director Gaddi Vasquez. Read the entire interview from start to finish and we promise you will learn something about the Peace Corps you didn't know before. Plus the debate continues over Safety and Security.

Schwarzenegger praises PC at Convention Governor Schwarzenegger praised the Peace Corps at the Republican National Convention: "We're the America that sends out Peace Corps volunteers to teach village children." Schwarzenegger has previously acknowledged his debt to his father-in-law, Peace Corps Founding Director Sargent Shriver, for teaching him "the joy of public service" and Arnold is encouraging volunteerism by creating California Service Corps and tapping his wife, Maria Shriver, to lead it. Leave your comments and who can come up with the best Current Events Funny?

Peace Corps: One of the Best Faces of America Teresa Heinz Kerry celebrates the Peace Corps Volunteer as one of the best faces America has ever projected in a speech to the Democratic Convention. The National Review disagreed and said that Heinz's celebration of the PCV was "truly offensive." What's your opinion and can you come up with a Political Funny?

Read the stories and leave your comments.