Are we a country that is a great country because we have great Government employees? I would think that the people around the world look at America and they say we are a great country, but probably not anywhere in their top 50 of their reasons is that we have great bureaucrats, that is the reason America is a great country.

I can guarantee on the top 10 of any list is that America has a great spirit of community and helping your neighbor and voluntarism. As de Tocqueville said, `America is great because it is good. When it ceases being good, it will no longer be great.'

Paying volunteers decreases our goodness. It is not the American spirit. It is not reaching out to help your neighbor just because they are neighbors, not because you get paid for it.

Do not tell me all these compassionate stories of how these people are so wonderful because they are helping. They are wonderful. It is great to help. But they are no different than the insurance agent who helps someone who comes and has their car wrecked and comes and helps then. It is their job. It is a wonderful job. It is an important job. It is necessary for the insurance person who helps. But do not raise this to some elevated standard of national and community service when, in fact, it is paid bureaucrat.

I have a suggestion. I happen to agree that there is a lot of work out there that can and should be done by folks in the genre of the AmeriCorps Program. We have a solution for that. It targets the people who need the jobs. It targets the people that need the training, who need the work experience.

I heard the Democratic leader say `all these young people in AmeriCorps.' Again, talk to the facts. You can be 60 years of age and be in AmeriCorps. It is not focused at young people. You can be a multimillionaire and you can be in AmeriCorps. There is no age other than up to 60, and there is no income qualifications.

Now, I can tell Members that we have a pool of people who desperately need help, who desperately want to work to feel that they can give back. The community needs them as much as they need the community. It is people on public assistance. People on welfare.

We create a program as we do in the Republican welfare reform bill that puts people needing job skills, training, and just some success in their life, give them the opportunity to go out and work that job. Why not give them the chance? Why give some rich doctor's kid $34,000 a year to go to school?

That is not what this program should be about. That is not a program, I do not think, this body wants to defend. It sounds so grand and it sounds so wonderful when they talk about how wonderful voluntarism is, but, folks, look at the facts.

As well-meaning as this program is, this is a program that is another social experiment based in Washington that is destructive of our nature and our character as Americans. We should end it. Quickly, decisively, and hopefully, tomorrow.

I reserve the balance of our time.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, on behalf of the minority leader, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. President, as has been mentioned during the course of the debate on the Daschle amendment, part of the Daschle amendment applies to restoration of some $210 million for the AmeriCorps Program. This program has been addressed earlier, in the course of the afternoon, and I will take a few moments to comment upon it.

First of all, Mr. President, I welcome the opportunity to hear from my colleagues who talk about how even a stipend which effectively is the minimum wage should not be available for individuals who want to volunteer in their community.

There are many in this institution who would evidently like to preserve voluntarism just for the very wealthy individuals in our country. There are a lot of needy kids, a lot of poor people, who have a sense of idealism and a commitment to service, and who would like to be able to take the time that others who have the financial resources can take in order to volunteer and to do good works.

The AmeriCorps concept is to give people an opportunity to work in their communities. It does provide a stipend which is basically the minimum wage. It does provide an award at the end of service to encourage people to go back to school, or to go to school. These are people who otherwise probably would not be able to afford it.