AmeriCorps turns 20 on Sept. 12, and as the nation’s main public service program in those two decades, it has benefited numerous communities and given 900,000 Americans a chance to help people.

Unfortunately, that milestone is also a reminder of Washington’s broken promise to expand substantially the number of full- and part-time AmeriCorps members, who receive minimal living expenses and a modest education stipend — now $5,645 a year for full-time service. Those in the program, which has a budget of roughly $665 million a year, do invaluable work, like tutoring and mentoring at-risk students, cleaning up dilapidated public parks and responding to floods, hurricanes and other disasters and emergencies.

During his first run for the White House, President Obama spoke many times about his commitment to expanding AmeriCorps and other national service programs. “This will be a cause of my presidency,” he pledged. In 2009, amid much fanfare, he signed into law the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act, named for the senator who was its foremost champion. The law was passed with bipartisan support in the House and Senate, and it called for increasing AmeriCorps positions in stages to 250,000 by 2017. Yet in the five years since, the authorized ramp-up has not occurred.

Instead of giving more people the opportunity to serve, AmeriCorps’ growth has become yet another victim of Washington’s dysfunction, weak leadership and the disintegration of bipartisanship for the public good. The gap between the yearly targets for AmeriCorps positions set in the act and the actual number of AmeriCorps participants has grown wider with each passing year. This year, fewer than 80,000 positions were funded; the goal is 200,000.