. >> i have been interested in americorps and other related programs. from what i can tell, you do not support it or talk about it very much. the tea party is advocating limiting national service. president obama campaigned to expand to 250,000. senator kennedy helped to pass the expansion. i was wondering what role "the nation" can play in helping to support the program. >> we've done a lot of work around expanding doctors into rural community centers. americorps is a good program. all of those should be supported. we have not done as much. there has been controversy at the magazine. i am more of a supporter of teach for america than my colleagues. they are good programs. >> what could we do collectively as the next up for occupy wall street? -- next step for occupy wall street? >> what is your main interest in the issues raised by occupy wall street? if it is money and politics, you should join with those who are occupying the supreme court, fighting in states for clean money reform, and fighting for an amendment strategy to overturn the citizens unit

the universal service is not just americorp vista. as i am concerned, serve your local church, school board, senate, mosque, girl's club, boy's club, whatever. now, some of the people may not be able to compensate you, but hopefully that, as mark said, could be worked out to get scholarships, universities and colleges recognize the significance of your service

there it is an imperative, americorps, vista, each and every year have challenges. i think -- this is not contradictory to your point of incentivizing. what we see is a burgeoning interest of young americans and those not so young wanting to give back in these ways outside the military, but we are not responding to the kind of fortified, bold increase that governor granholm suggested. i think individual colleges and universities providing ideas, provide incentives, to less loans, there are programs that can be tied to that for loan purposes or incentivizing on the front end which the mayor court grants. >> we have time for one more question before we bring in jason up here, and we will get in the back on the right. i starter on a left, i will end on the right. >> i was wondering you had said that the people that volunteered to go into service are less committed because of the lack of incentive or the lack of support from everyone. andou initiated a draft there was more support, don't you think the people who did not want to be in service would be less committed? is

a new americorps program that's going to connect more professional scientists and engineers to young students who might follow in their footsteps. and other people are stepping up too. some of america's biggest tech companies are encouraging their workers to mentor young students. you've got media organizations that are working with athletes like outstanding wide receiver victor cruz from the new york giants who's here to highlight how critical math and science are to sports. [applause] and by the way, since santorum to have's here, i don't know -- since victor's here, did you see the exhibit about the whole cooling shoulder pads and helmet that these young guys did? they had a whole slogan, said, you know, you can succeed in athletics and science. they were very impressive. had the little gatorade coming in -- [laughter] you didn't have to reach for your gatorade, it would automatic transmit itself into your helmet. [laughter] it can work. we've got nonprofits that are helping to organize 1,000 summer learning events this year. they all realize how important science, technology, eng

service we started talking about how do we truly recognize those who are out in the community -- americorpscross america? today 832 mayors representing 50 states and over a hundred million americans will be participating in the mayor's day recognition for national service. we just want to lift up those who are young and young at heart who are doing so many positive things in the community. they're serving. they're making things happen. they're improving the lives of children and adults throughout our communities and they really do deserve service. quite frankly, many of us and i know many neighbors would agree, we can't really get done all the things we need to get done in government without these kinds of partnerships. so our hats are off to them today. we just want to thank them. >> mr. mayor, it is a public/private partnership. a lot of individuals out there, a lot of schools. there are also companies like deloitte, for instance, deloitte, and starbucks, working together with the united way, for instance, to help out storm ravaged areas because of sandy. >> sure. >> they're working hard

i love americorps, the national service program, and i think it should be bigger and more people should have a chance to do it. but i think that before the recession, health care reform did weigh more good than harm. there were things that congress insisted on that i thought were not good. welfarelem with the reform law is we capped payments they were gaining in february of 1994. when they dropped 60% when i was president, states have it that -- had a lot of money, which they were supposed to put into education and training and other things. what happened is, after i left office, a lot of them were permitted to stop spending that money on poor people, which i think was a terrible mistake. i am still very proud we did it. i am most proud of the economic policy that we began with the passage of one vote by both houses of my economic plan in 1993 because that drove down interest rates and drove up investment, and celebrated -- accelerated new jobs and new technology. we had 30%antly, more jobs in my year, 30% more than in private -- president reagan's term, but we had 100 times as many peo

there is a great appetite for people right now, there are many more applicants for things like americorpsfunding to support. i think one do start by providing more resources but i also think we can change it. what we really want is people to feel like they have some expectation to contribute. >> what are some of the activity you think are best for this kind of program? what kinds of things can the young people do in this country to get that experience? >> i think military is one small part of it. i think teaching. everything around education is so important to the future and if you think about if young people contribute to education, they can see the future as they build it. i think there are things like health care. we certainly have a need in areas of health care. there are physical things, with the civilian contribution corps did and making enough money to survive but built things that still last. i think is thethere's a range o activities if you put people in teams, i'd like to see them work on teams about a year and something i think they will feel good about afterwards. >> a great c

according to the new york city americorps' office, 85% of the guns used in crimes come from out of state. 90% of those guns are illegal. they are illegally trafficked into our city and state. all of the laws we have on the books today effectively none of them are directly focused on preventing someone from driving from one state to another with stricter gun laws, parking in their car in a parking lot and selling hundreds of firearms dwell into the hands of criminals. it's shocking to me as a mother and as a lawmaker. instead, prosecutors primarily rely on laws that are prohibiting making false statements in connection with the purchase of a firearm. these are paperwork violations with penalties too low to be effective law enforcement tools. over the past three fiscal years, more than 330,000 guns used in violent crimes show telltale signs of black market trafficking. 420,000 firearms were stolen and thousands of guns with obliterated serial numbers were recovered by law enforcement. so while law enforcement is working overtime to track down illegal guns and apprehend those who traffic th

the universal service is not just americorp vista. as far as i am concerned, serve your local church, school board, senate, mosque, girl's club, boy's club, whatever. now, some of the people may not be able to compensate you, but hopefully that, as mark said, could be worked out to get scholarships, universities and colleges recognize the significance of your service and waive tuition or find ways towards you. i think it's important that this generation of americans, which clearly understands the importance of service is recognized for that. we appreciate it. one option is in public office, a public policy institute, one be a mentor to someone who benefits from your expertise and guidance. there's a lot of ways to serve, but we have to find a way to recognize the service, give people a piece of paper or certificate saying, thank you for serving america. >> antonia, you want to weigh? >> in this country, there's two r's. there's your right and your responsibility to the communal, and we all should have a stake in the game whether it's