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  • Debate Topics

    2008 September Public Forum Debate Topic:
    Resolved: That the United States should implement a military draft.

    www.nflonline.org/...Topics - Preview

    local politics economic on 2008-08-15

    • 2008 September Public Forum Debate Topic:

      Resolved: That the United States should implement a military draft.
    • 2008 April Public Forum Debate Topic:

      Resolved: That the Economic Stimulus Act of 2008 will successfully mitigate economic slowdowns over the next year.

  • The Rumors of a Military Draft Have Not Been Greatly Exaggerated

    • John McCain believes that the answer to these challenges is not to roll back our overseas commitments. The size and composition of our armed forces must be matched to our nation's defense requirements. As requirements expand in the global war on terrorism so must our Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, and Coast Guard be reconfigured to meet these new challenges. John McCain thinks it is especially important to increase the size of the Army and Marine Corps to defend against the threats we face today.
    • Washington would not be limited by personnel concerns when considering military adventures around the globe
    • 2 more annotations...

  • What Happens During a Military Draft?

    • 1. CONGRESS AND THE PRESIDENT AUTHORIZE A DRAFT. A crisis occurs which requires more troops than the volunteer military can supply. Congress passes and the President signs legislation which starts a draft. It should be noted that the President cannot initiate a draft on his own. Congress would first have to pass legislation (both the House and Senate), and the President would have to sign the bill into law.



      2. THE LOTTERY. A lottery based on birthdays determines the order in which registered men are called up by Selective Service. The first to be called, in a sequence determined by the lottery, will be men whose 20th birthday falls during that year, followed, if needed, by those aged 21, 22, 23, 24 and 25. 18-year-olds and those turning 19 would probably not be drafted.



      3. ALL PARTS OF SELECTIVE SERVICE ARE ACTIVATED. The Agency activates and orders its State Directors and Reserve Forces Officers to report for duty.

    • 1. CONGRESS AND THE PRESIDENT AUTHORIZE A DRAFT. A crisis occurs which requires more troops than the volunteer military can supply. Congress passes and the President signs legislation which starts a draft. It should be noted that the President cannot initiate a draft on his own. Congress would first have to pass legislation (both the House and Senate), and the President would have to sign the bill into law.



      2. THE LOTTERY. A lottery based on birthdays determines the order in which registered men are called up by Selective Service. The first to be called, in a sequence determined by the lottery, will be men whose 20th birthday falls during that year, followed, if needed, by those aged 21, 22, 23, 24 and 25. 18-year-olds and those turning 19 would probably not be drafted.

    • 1 more annotations...

  • Study: Veterans more likely to be homeless - CNN.com

    • More than 25 percent of the homeless population in the United States are military veterans, although they represent 11 percent of the civilian adult population, according to a new report.

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      On any given night last year, nearly 196,000 veterans slept on the street, in a shelter or in transitional housing, the study by the Homelessness Research Institute found.

    • About 44,000 to 64,000 veterans are classified as "chronically homeless" -- homeless for long periods or repeatedly.

      Other veterans -- nearly 468,000 -- are experiencing "severe housing cost burden," or paying more than half their income for housing, thereby putting them at a high risk for homelessness.

    • 1 more annotations...

  • Selective Service System: History and Records

    • Before
      Congress made improvements to the draft in 1971, a man could
      qualify for a student deferment if he could show he was a
      full-time student making satisfactory progress toward a degree.




      Under the current draft law, a college student can have his
      induction postponed only until the end of the current semester.
      A senior can be postponed until the end of the academic year.

    • A
      draft held today would use a lottery to determine the order
      of call.

      Before the lottery was implemented in the latter part of the
      Vietnam conflict, Local Boards called men classified 1-A,
      18 1/2 through 25 years old, oldest first. This resulted in
      uncertainty for the potential draftees during the entire time
      they were within the draft-eligible age group. A draft held
      today would use a lottery system under which a man would spend
      only one year in first priority for the draft - either the
      calendar year he turned 20 or the year his deferment ended.
      Each year after that, he would be placed in a succeedingly
      lower priority group and his liability for the draft would
      lessen accordingly. In this way, he would be spared the uncertainty
      of waiting until his 26th birthday to be certain he would
      not be drafted.

  • Reinstating the Military Draft

    • Rest assured that if the military offered a compensation
      package of say $50,000 to $100,000 a year, they could get all the
      soldiers they wanted. Thus, lesson number one is that whenever
      there's a draft you know that the wage is too low to get a sufficient number of people to voluntarily supply their labor services.
      Senator Fritz Hollings said, "One way to avoid a lot more wars is to
      institute the draft." That's a statement that reflects gross
      economic ignorance. In terms of incentives it produces the opposite
      effect. Why? The draft is used because the wage the military
      offers isn't high enough to get what's deemed as a sufficient number
      of people to volunteer. Here's my no-brainer question: under which
      scenario is war cheaper for the Defense Department - the volunteer
      army or the draft? Obviously, it's the draft since the Defense
      Department doesn't have to pay the higher wages to get men to sign
      up voluntarily. Since the Defense Department has a smaller manpower
      expense, the draft disguises the true cost of war, and one would
      expect more not less military adventurism.



      Waging war requires much more than soldiers. You need tanks,
      bombs, bullets and aircraft. Have you heard a call to draft $15
      million F-15 fighter jets or $4.3 million M1 Abrams Main Battle
      Tanks? I haven't. The reason is that the government pays the kind
      of prices whereby producers voluntarily supply these products. Of
      course, if the Pentagon was willing to pay McDonnell Douglas only $5
      million for an F-15 and General Dynamics only $1 million for a tank,
      it would have to draft (read confiscate) jets and tanks.

  • CNN.com - Rangel introduces bill to reinstate draft - Jan. 8, 2003

    • Under his bill, the draft would apply to men and women ages 18 to 26; exemptions would be granted to allow people to graduate from high school, but college students would have to serve.

    • The nation had a draft in place between 1948 and 1973. It grew to become the center of controversy during the Vietnam War, 1964-1975, an undeclared war that was the most unpopular conflict America has fought.







      Anger over the war led many young men to flee to Canada and elsewhere to avoid the draft, and violent protests were rampant. When the draft ended, the United States set up an all-volunteer military.







      Since 1980, the Selective Service has required men 18 to 26 to register to give the government a pool of men it could draw from in case troops were needed in an emergency.







      As of October 31, 14.1 million men would be eligible for a draft, said Selective Service spokesman Pat Schuback. Twenty-year-olds would be called up first, followed by others -- year by year. In the age group 20 to 26, 11 million would be eligible.







      The average number of men registered per year during the Vietnam War era was 18.4 million. That covers the period from July 1, 1964, through June 1973.

  • Search Results - THOMAS (Library of Congress)

    • To provide for the common defense by requiring all persons in the United States, including women, between the ages of 18 and 42 to perform a period of military service or a period of civilian service in furtherance of the national defense and homeland security, and for other purposes.

  • Search Results - THOMAS (Library of Congress)

    • To provide for the common defense by requiring that all young persons in the United States, including women, perform a period of military service or a period of civilian service in furtherance of the national defense and homeland security, and for other purposes.

  • US military draft &squo;should be considered&squo; | Herald Sun

    • From correspondents in Washington




      August 11, 2007 09:40am

    • Separately, the US military said the army and marines met their recruiting goals in July and were on track to meet their recruiting targets for the year.
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  • Dollar-Driven Recruiting

    • the Army, because of low numbers of new recruits, was
      forced to refashion its enlistment criteria over the course of the last
      few years, allowing them to say at this moment that they were meeting
      their 2008 recruiting goals of 80,000 in the active Army and 26,500 for
      the Army Reserve.
    • raising the maximum enlistment age from 35 to 42, permitting those who
      are overweight or have physical injuries, granting entry to those with a
      criminal record and lowering the aptitude standards. A study by the
      National Priorities Project released in January determined that just
      over 70 percent of new recruits joining the active-duty Army in 2007 had
      a high school diploma, falling nearly twenty points below the Army's
      goal of 90 percent. The Army has long known that high school graduation
      is an important factor, not for performance but for retention.
    • 5 more annotations...

  • Draft Registration: The Politics of Institutional Immortality

    CATO Institute Policy Analysis: Draft Registration

    cato.org/pa-214.html - Preview

    military on 2008-09-20

    • Cato Policy Analysis No. 214
      August 15, 1994

  • Vast Majority of Americans Opposed to Reinstituting Military Draft

    • 2007 Aug 13-16   




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