Never Mind the Peace Corps—Biden and Harris Have Created the Vote Corps for College Kids

Turning the work-study program into a slush fund for the Democratic Party.

The only thing more terrifying than letting a young person get behind the wheel of a car is letting him or drive a country. It should scare the daylights out of us that nearly a third of 18 to 29-year-olds think Osama Bin Laden had good ideas. This is also the same crowd that chants the anti-Semitic “from the river to the sea” Hamas slogan, but 53 percent of them can’t tell you which river or which sea.

One would hope these people should learn a few things before going into the voting booth. But Vice President Kamala Harris can’t get enough of them, which is why she’s promoting a slush fund for Democrats’ get-out-the-vote operations on college campuses. 

Harris created this slush fund under the Federal Work-Study (FWS) program. Work-study was designed to help students with some of the costs associated with getting a degree. It provides grants to supplement hourly wages if a student works part-time jobs for the school, like in the library or as a tutor. 

Don’t worry, though—it’s not partisan, anyone can use it. And there are so many Republican voters on college campuses… right?

In a recent letter, Office of Postsecondary Education Assistant Secretary Nasser H. Paydar writes, “FWS funds may be used for employment by a Federal, State, local, or Tribal public agency for civic engagement work that is not associated with a particular interest or group. . . .supporting broad-based get-out-the-vote activities, voter registration, providing voter assistance at a polling place or through a voter hotline, or serving as a poll worker.”

Paydar goes on to clarify that such use of FWS funding for work in the “public interest” would be permissible so long as it doesn’t involve “advocating, fundraising, or recruiting for a specific political candidate in public or party office or a specific cause, whether partisan or nonpartisan.”

That language sounds great. But the reality is that it provides taxpayer-funded payroll for left-of-center entities to use taxpayer-funded institutions for get-out-the-vote operations. 

This program started in the Obama administration, but Biden and Harris have taken steps to expand it. 2022 guidance from the Department of Education mandated institutes of higher education play “a critical role in promoting and supporting participation in the electoral process,” including overseeing the availability and distribution of voter registration forms. For Miami-Dade College in Florida, supporting participation in the electoral process meant partnering with Engage Miami—an “non-partisan” coalition of “Gen Z, millennials, Black, Latinx, Indigenous, immigrants, women, men, queer, trans, and nonbinary” activists—that promoted Democrat candidates in its “voter guide.” 

The college administration also endorsed a “2022 Democratic Engagement Action Plan” with the ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge that advertised paid positions for students participating in voter engagement efforts. According to ALL IN’s website, the organization has programs at over 1,000 American campuses with access to nearly 10 million college students.

It doesn’t stop with work study. Remember the student loan debate? Nobody is even pretending that it’s about the student loan “crisis”—everyone knows it’s all about getting votes from current and recent college grads. That’s probably why the Biden Administration announced it was wiping out $1.2 billion in federal student loan debt via executive order by accelerating debt forgiveness measures in the SAVE plan. Under the SAVE plan, qualifying individuals can have their monthly payment reduced to $0 and also get a pass on interest… and over the next decade, this latest giveaway will cost taxpayers up to $474 billion. 

The taxpayer-funded effort to get college students and recent grads out to vote keeps on rolling. “Illegal electioneering” with public resources got so out of hand in deep-red Texas—of all places—the state had to file lawsuits against four separate public school districts. In one county, the suit alleges, an elementary school principal used the school’s email system to distribute voting guidelines favoring Democrat candidates to all staff and employees. By now, it should be no surprise that teachers unions are as left-wing as the “non-partisan” get-out-the-vote efforts they endorse. 

It’s not enough for Democrats that Average Joe and Jane are paying 20 percent more for groceries in the last few years. They also want you to fund their get-out-the-vote efforts to get more of them elected. While 60 to 70 percent of public-sector union employees identify as Democrats, their PACs give over 97 percent of their funds to Democrat candidates and aligned causes. In 2022, only $160 million of $700 million these organizations spent on elections was PAC money—the rest came from member dues, taken directly from teachers’ taxpayer-funded salaries. Taxpayers also fund paid time off for federal government workers so that American Federation of Government Employees members can vote how their union bosses instruct them to.

People who paid off their loans or got a job instead of going to college are now paying the blue-haired Gender Studies and Basketweaving double-major to hold up a GOTV sign. They’re also paying for public servants to get another vacation day. But don’t worry, it’s just Democrats making sure that your vote—the one based on a life of hard work and a lifetime of experience—is outnumbered by those who think Muslim terrorists and 20 genders go together. 

Paul Revere is the pseudonym of a conservative writer.