Tax dollars paid teens to lobby for … more tax dollars
posted at 2:20 pm on August 3, 2010 by Ed Morrissey
Help me out, fellow Trekkers. Didn’t the Borg start out like this?
On Monday, District residents’ tax dollars went to pay Summer Youth Employment Program participants to attend a Council oversight session at which they lobbied for more funding for the program.
It’s just the latest outrage surrounding one of D.C.’s best-intentioned and worst-run programs.
SYEP, which hires about 20,000 D.C. youth for various minimum wage summer jobs, was budgeted at $22.7 million. But it’s already $11.5 million over budget — an overrun of 50 percent.
In other words, the “employment” SYEP provided these teens was to work as lobbyists — for SYEP. Maybe they’re apprenticing them for future work on K Street!
Speaking of the Borg, the program has apparently started absorbing money from other programs in an effort to keep itself alive:
The Fenty Administration took $8.5 million from federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families funding to fill this year’s gap. That money had been expected to go to homeless service agencies. Marta Beresin of the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless reports a 36 percent increase in D.C. homelessness since the recession began, and there are currently 543 Washington families waiting for emergency shelter services.
Homeless advocates said they were already underfunded before this expected windfall was yanked away from them. Even one SYEP participant appeared yesterday to say that the city should help homeless families, not extend SYEP by seven days.
Ouch! One of their teen lobbyists left the collective. Time to re-establish control, SYEP!
Teen unemployment has been a huge problem in the recession, but it’s hardly as pressing as homelessness and starvation. Someone needs to reconsider their priorities in the DC council, and quickly. Besides, this problem lies in no small part with Congress, which made the problem much worse by raising the minimum wage nearly 30% over the last three years and making teen labor more costly to small businesses. The result was depressingly predictable — as predictable as bureaucrats protecting their turf by stealing from the homeless.
Only in DC would a teen-employment program mean turning teens into lobbyists for funding the program. At least, we hope it’s only in DC.
Update: The Boss Emeritus is all over this.
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“SYEP we can!”
/Drone in Trining
red winger on August 3, 2010 at 2:25 PM
Talk about getting a jump start. What next… White House internists? Oh.. wait.
upinak on August 3, 2010 at 2:25 PM
And WHY is teen unemployment so high?
1. Higher minimum wage = less jobs available.
2. Illegals doing the work. Anecdote: I picked berries in the summer as a kid. think that job is still around for a teen?
3. Crappy economy fueled by anti-private sector government.
Perfect storm baby!
WitchDoctor on August 3, 2010 at 2:26 PM
SYEP is most correctly pronounced “self-licking ice cream cone.”
JeffWeimer on August 3, 2010 at 2:26 PM
These are still things tax money should not be paying for.
Count to 10 on August 3, 2010 at 2:26 PM
Really? We’re worried about whether some kid can get a summer job that isn’t really a job? Where do those jobs go when school starts? Do they dry up?
How does D.C. create 22k jobs out of thin air in the summer?
ButterflyDragon on August 3, 2010 at 2:29 PM
Welcome to the machine.
Blacklake on August 3, 2010 at 2:31 PM
The news hasn’t been exactly great over the past 18/19 months. I’m starting to really get bummed by all this mess. Is this even fixable with someone else at the helm? Obama’s a schmuck, and worse, because a lot of his agenda is just that. Agenda. It’s all deliberate in his attempts to take over the country.
Wonders if he’s buddies on the sly with Chavez, and seeks advice daily.
capejasmine on August 3, 2010 at 2:32 PM
Thankfully, I’m too old to be assimilated.
AubieJon on August 3, 2010 at 2:33 PM
Curly was much more talented.
Chip on August 3, 2010 at 2:33 PM
This is what the left means by bringing back New Deal programs for employment.
rob verdi on August 3, 2010 at 2:34 PM
It’s this just a microcosm of neo-progressive government itself?
Chip on August 3, 2010 at 2:36 PM
I hate my generation.
blatantblue on August 3, 2010 at 2:37 PM
Where did that road paved with good intentions end up again?
MississippiMom on August 3, 2010 at 2:40 PM
Umm… seasonal jobs are seasonal?
Employers need extra help to cover vacationing employees. Employers need extra help to serve vavationing people.
reaganaut on August 3, 2010 at 2:41 PM
I’ll repeat what I said on the other thread…
That reminds me of the time the Milwaukee/Racine/Kenosha Regional Transit Authority used $496,000 of its $500,000 take from a $2 tax on car rentals to lobby for a tax increase.
And no, I am not making it up
steveegg on August 3, 2010 at 2:43 PM
What an utterly worthless endeavor.
Teens learning nothing applicable to the real world, unless they aspire towards homelessness or community organizing, two things that are equally useless.
NoDonkey on August 3, 2010 at 2:44 PM
Fenty runs his little fiefdom the same way Barry runs his.
Big surprise.
GarandFan on August 3, 2010 at 2:45 PM
Democrats: Wasting your hard-earned money so you don’t have to.
Insert witty screen name here on August 3, 2010 at 2:45 PM
Go back and look at that health care flow chart again…
… Can’t wait for the Borg civil war.
Seven Percent Solution on August 3, 2010 at 2:48 PM
Huge budget, but still $11 million over budget. They can’t even manage a summer-school activity program. I can’t wait to see how our new health care plan works.
hawksruleva on August 3, 2010 at 2:51 PM
If they are only 50% over budget, they are doing better than the congress.
Vashta.Nerada on August 3, 2010 at 2:52 PM
Teens are learning how to game the system. If you’re a Dem, that’s an essential skill that everyone should learn. To them, freedom means knowing how to take stuff from other people via the government.
hawksruleva on August 3, 2010 at 2:52 PM
Ahh…a whole new generation of community organizers.
DamnCat on August 3, 2010 at 2:52 PM
Once upon a time teenagers mowed lawns and bused tables.
Gee, who does those jobs now?/
Disturb the Universe on August 3, 2010 at 2:55 PM
Now they can count these jobs as both saved and created.
TexasDan on August 3, 2010 at 3:07 PM
Underpaid, lawbreaking, exploited illegal aliens.
hawksruleva on August 3, 2010 at 3:08 PM
Insert witty screen name here on August 3, 2010 at 3:20 PM
Hey, this is brilliant! If it works really well, SYEP will just keep expanding until unemployment goes to zero!
Of course, sustainability is a problem, but I’m sure our brilliant leaders will come up with something equally brilliant.
ZenDraken on August 3, 2010 at 3:26 PM
Well, having just read the Star Trek: Destiny series, the Borg did start off as an alien species who were control freaks, and if that doesn’t describe Democrats and their mindless drones, I don’t know what does.
cebj25 on August 3, 2010 at 3:34 PM
Would this be marketing? Or investing? No, this would be fundraising. The Government is non-prof.
mikewor on August 3, 2010 at 3:45 PM
Sorry… It’s TREKKIES. A “Trekker” is someone off the “Globe Trekkers” PBS show that, while entertaining, still sucks the life from the US Treasury.
CynicalOptimist on August 3, 2010 at 3:57 PM
Disturb the Universe on August 3, 2010 at 2:55 PM
Around my house, me.
NoDonkey on August 3, 2010 at 4:07 PM
Mmmm mmmm mmmm.
(S)YEP.
hillbillyjim on August 3, 2010 at 4:44 PM
Same problem with Public Employee Unions. Incestuous behavior.
Dandapani on August 3, 2010 at 8:13 PM
Ah, the return of the Barack Obama Religious Groupies.
Well played, Ed.
Cylor on August 4, 2010 at 12:03 AM