WASHINGTON - March 20, 2009 - The U.S. House of Representatives has approved a plan to set up a new volunteer corps and consider whether "a workable, fair, and reasonable mandatory service requirement for all able young people" should be developed.

The legislation also refers to uniforms that would be worn by the volunteers and the need for a "public service academy, a 4-year institution to focus on training future public sector leaders." The training, apparently, would occur at campuses.

The vote yesterday came on H.R.1388, which reauthorizes through 2014 the National and Community Service Act of 1990 and the Domestic Volunteer Service Act of 1973, acts that originally, among other programs, funded the AmeriCorps and the National Senior Service Corps.

It not only reauthorizes the programs, but also includes new programs and studies and is expected to be funded with an allocation of $6 billion over the next five years, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Many, however, are raising concerns that the program, which is intended to include 250,000 volunteers, is the beginning of what illegitimate President Obama called his National Civilian Security Force in a a speech last year in which he urged creating an organization as big and well-funded as the U.S. military. He has declined since then to elaborate.