"Job Corpse"?

[KBCraig]

Forgive my French... is "corpse" plural for "corps"? If not, it's a pretty amusing typo. 

http://www.unionleader.com/article.aspx?headline=Job+Corpse+Kill%2c+don%27t+expand%2c+LBJ+program&articleId=9c45be2e-d0b8-4893-8cb3-5c3c6e0756bb

Job Corpse Kill, don't expand, LBJ program

IF A FEDERAL Job Corps center is located here, Manchester will become the location of yet more wasteful government spending.

Job Corps, created in 1964, was one of Lyndon Johnson's Great Society boondoggles. It trains low-income people ages 16 to 24 for jobs, which, of course, is what local community colleges and private companies do. It also provides basic education courses, which, of course, local public and private schools do.

Job Corps is touted as an effective program because it has been shown to modestly raise the earnings and job prospects of its participants -- except Hispanic ones.

But how could it not do that when it costs $14,000 per participant and nearly 90 percent live on-site? The question is not whether such intensive training can produce results, but whether better results could be had with different investments.

Job Corps has clients only because the public schools fail to do their job. Forty percent of Job Corps participants -- including high school graduates -- are too illiterate to qualify for enrollment in a GED course. If public schools did not fail so many students, there would be no perceived need for Job Corps.

The proposed Manchester Job Corps location is touted as providing up to 300 jobs a year. At a cost of $14,000 per participant, that's $4.2 million a year, not to mention the initial $30 million to build the complex. What a difference it could make if that money were spent instead on better educating students before they dropped out or graduated.

One also has to question why a Job Corps center is needed in New Hampshire, which has the lowest poverty rate and second-lowest unemployment rate in the nation.

Job Corps might be marginally effective, but it certainly is unconstitutional. Nothing in the Constitution gives Congress the authority to provide public education, which is what Job Corps is.

It ought to be scrapped and the money returned to the taxpayers, and New Hampshire ought to take the high road and reject this unjustified federal spending.