President Clinton’s pet AmeriCorps project must go. The project’s goal, making community service by youngsters a rewarding experience, is sound. But the program’s costs are outrageous and there’s a problem with its ideology.

AmeriCorps, designed to pay its 20,000 members to perform community service, is a primary example of excessive government waste. The average annual cost of the program per participant was estimated by the General Accounting Office at about $27,000. That’s a modest income for some American families.

Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley has been one of the most outspoken critics of the program, which he says should either be axed or drastically reinvented.

The federal government should not be in the business of paying lavishly a relatively minuscule number of youngsters for serving their communities.

There are roughly 4 million youths who donate time to community service every year, yet because they aren’t on the AmeriCorps roster, the only reward they get is a feeling of accomplishment.

Meanwhile, AmeriCorps “employees” learn that the almighty dollar is the supreme motivating factor.