Our active and reserve military is bleeding. The reports come from not only the experienced Murtha and his insiders, but from more and more military reports. We can dramatically slow our military’s bleeding by reducing the growing pockets of hatred in which our military is increasingly serving. We can move toward stopping the bleeding by sending a robust corps of American nation builders.

 

 

“It’s the economy, stupid…” 

 

So send the World Service Corps

 

By Dwayne Hunn

 

As of January, the National Priorities web site lists the running cost of the Iraq war as $235 billion.

 

Simplifying gross realities, the gross related costs for such military endeavors is more like $670 billion, and a half million + annually for each of our military personnel.

 

Dividing the DOD budget by our 1.4 million military personnel puts the per military personnel cost (PMPC) at $300,500.

 

If the following related budgetary and other costs are added:

·          War Supplementals.

·          Veterans Budget.

·          Rebuild Iraqi forces cost.

·          Adding the needed 7 new Army Brigades to reduce active duty tours.

·          Interest on the National Debt attributable to military expenditures.

·          Costs attributable to 337,000 homeless vets.

·          Labor Department Reintegrating Budget for Vets. 

·          Lost Federal Revenues attributable to tax write-offs given to corporations hiring Blackwater Privatized Security and other mercenaries supplying corporations.

The annual PMPC climbs to $588,857

 

When the following often overlooked estimates are included:

·          Lost productivity from missing our National Guardsmen. 

·          Lost R&D and infrastructure investment. 

·          Lost education investments, 

·          Lost productivity from lost business investment.

The PMPC reaches  $613,857 (Spreadsheet available at http://worldservicecorps.us/cost%20per%20military%20personnel.htm )

 

Adding un-calculateable costs attributable to serious injuries and amputations, suffered by over 16,000 of our soldiers by 2006, and the post traumatic stress syndromes, the PMPC soars well beyond a half million dollars annually. 

 

What if you could help create legislation that would:

·          Reduce those PMPC by $100,000+ per year?

·          Lessen the hate brewing areas into which our brave soldiers are too often forced?

·          Enhance economic wealth, good will, and world security?

·          Require a skill-building investment of $15 – 30,000 per year in a million of America’s best assets – its 18 –60+ year olds – to obtain these benefits.

 

If the mechanism to do that were pushing Congressional reps to introduce and pass the citizen-initiated World Service Corps (WSC) proposed congressional legislation this year, how much would you help? 

 

Decide how much you would help to change the world by studying its finer points at www.WorldServiceCorps.us, where you can at least sign its on-line Petition.

 

What is the WSC?

 

If enacted in this Congress, each year for the next seven years approximately 140,000 Americans would voluntarily choose to serve in their choice of the Peace Corps, AmeriCorps, Habitat for Humanity, Head Start, Doctors Without Borders, Red Cross, International Rescue Committee, OxFam, Mercy Corps, State Conservation Corps, etc.  By the seventh year one million World Service Corps members, or .6th of 1% of those aged 20-60, would annually serve at home or abroad for at least the ensuing 20 years, whereupon Congress could consider sun-setting the legislation.

 

Its passage would:

·          Build a peaceful, productive, nation building army that our military leaders admit the military is not trained to do. 

·          Create the needed 21st century Special Forces that can address needs in domestic and international pockets of poverty that too often lead to brutality, warfare, genocide, and terrorism.  

·          Reduce the financial and bloody burdens placed on our brave soldiers. 

·          Give outlets to the patriotic desire to serve, build, learn, and play on good teams that inherently exists among most Americans. 

·          Raise America’s public policy making IQ and experience via having millions of Americans serving in the classrooms of world needs.

·          Save America a lot of heartache and money.

 

The financial incentives required of this proposed legislation are less than 1/6th those offered our military volunteers and would have beneficial educational and economic effects on America’s working classes.  Upon service completion, volunteers would receive their choice of:

·        Two years of community plus two years of state college tuition, approximately $15,000.

·        Equivalent educational loan pay off or contribution to community educational scholarship fund.

·        Equivalent investment in Medical or IRA Accounts.

All of the above would be transferable to relatives. 

 

With the influx of the young, baby boomers, and career breakers, the participating non-governmental and governmental organizations would competently handle the volunteer increase into their organizations and more quickly improve the world.

 

The WSC is not a new costly bureaucracy.  It is a small office that funnels America’s best resources – can-do Americans – into effective, existing organizations.  It will create a productive 21st century Special Corps to augment our 1.4 million military.  It will lessen our military’s burden by doing the nation building with which they are too often overburdened.

 

The annual cost of maintaining a volunteer could add another $15 – 40,000.  However, half of the volunteers may serve with the WSC’s non-governmental organizations (NGOs), thereby reducing that governmental cost by half.

 

To help offset their additional volunteer costs, those NGOs will find increased contributions from friends, volunteers’ families, and the greater numbers they help recover from disasters, thanks to their enhanced capacity.

Financing

The private individuals and corporate donors FINANCING section of the WSC proposals would further reduce WSC costs.  Here, instead of constant cries that the middle class is carrying a disproportionate cost of the war, WSC legislation provides a public relations incentive to more fairly spread the costs.

 

The FINANCING section of the WSC proposal calls for listing all the Fortune 500 Corporations who have paid little or no taxes, according to such organizations as Citizens for Tax Justice (CTJ) and the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), on the WSC’s public website.  At the web site, low tax paying corporations could show in dollars donated how they help fund the WSC to make tomorrow safer for today’s kids.  Such socially conscious donations could significantly reduce WSC reliance on individual tax revenues to cover costs.

Shortsighted economy

In the near term, wars seem to bolster an economy.  In reality, wars generally benefit those near the top.  Such wars destroy the foundations of a strong economy built and bled for by America’s working classes.

 

Yes, it’s the economy, stupid…

 

And a penny saved is much more than a penny earned, when invested wisely. 

 

The pennies saved and invested wisely in the WSC could change the world.  And provide the resources that help repair the crumbling economic foundations of America’s working classes, and those workers more opportunities to grow into millionaires. 

The WSC is a program long needed.  It reduces the number of soldiers stationed in harm’s way, the loss of their lives and limbs, and expands the barn building that historically increases the building of understanding that creates civil, prosperous civilizations.  In the long run, WSC works reduces the costs and pains borne by our military… and the economy.

 

In this contentious Congress, the magic to make the WSC happen resides with citizens involving themselves in leading Congress to make it happen.  Visit www.WorldServiceCorps.us, sign the on-line Petition, and help lead Congress to creative, needed, bipartisan law.

 

Figures updated 2/6/06.