Should volunteerism be voluntary?

According the CNN, the House of Representatives passed legislation today that would greatly expand AmeriCorps as well as create other government sponsored volunteer organizations. In addition, it would create a program that would give small monetary compensation to the elderly if they completed 350 hours of volunteer work. A modest sum, admittedly. This bill also expands the educational stipend from Americorps to $5350, the same amount as a Pell grant. So, why should we care? Well, to start, I have to admit that I think people should volunteer. I think it is a valuable service to those around us. As a college student and a church member (there are other ways to volunteer, these are just from my experience) I volunteered to work with several organizations. Working on a house for Habitat for Humanity was very rewarding and educational since I am actually capable of doing most of the repairs on my own house because of some of the things I learned doing this. In college, I helped build a fence on a farm in central Texas. The people were very nice and it was a very rewarding experience for me because the people were very nice, the work was hard but worthwhile. It was just a fun day, even though we worked our butts off. Now, I do not want to minimize anyone's volunteer experience. If you choose to volunteer, AmeriCorps is probably just as good a place as a church or through a college program or however you manage to spend time helping others. However, volunteering should always remain a choice for the individual. I read this story and thought it was great. I don't really think the government needs to be involved in volunteerism, but of the things it does, this is very benign and very rewarding and tends to have few unintended consequences. However, I have read elsewhere that some of our representatives in Congress would like to create a program that would "require" one year of service for every young high school graduate. This kind of a program I would have a lot of problems with, not the least of which is its questionable constitutionality. Nonetheless, this isn't what this legislation does. My problems here are twofold. One, why are we providing compensation for volunteerism. Even though it is only 1000 dollars for 350 hours, that still kind of seems like it isn't really volunteerism. After all, that's 2.85 an hour. Certainly well below minimum wage, but significantly higher than 0, which is typically what a volunteer gets. After all, shouldn't someone volunteer because they feel strongly about the cause or because they want to help people? It should be because they want to do it. By providing compensation, it is true that you might increase participation, but I don't think it remains volunteer. The second problem I have here is that it seems it'll cost us, the taxpayer, 6 billion dollars over the next five years. That's 1.2 billion a year. Not a lot of money in a 3.6 trillion dollar budget, admittedly, but that isn't really my complaint here. Studies of the Great Depression have shown, contrary to what might have been expected, that charitable giving and volunteerism were at all time highs during this period. It suggests that during the toughest times, that the best comes out of people and they dig deeper into their time and their pockets to help others. Expanding volunteer programs at a taxpayer cost of 6 billion dollars ignores this reality, instead assuming that people will give less of their time and money during a recession/depression. It just seems to me that now is not the time. If you want to expand volunteer programs to help spur volunteerism, it should happen in good times, when people are less likely to volunteer, not now, when they will actually do it for free. I guess it comes down to the old adage of why pay for something you can get for free, especially when government spending is running amok anyway.