Category Archives: AWSC Proposal

American World Service Congressional Proposal

AWSCNS Proposal Summary

This is how a summary for the proposed American World Service Corps National Service (AWSCNS) Congressional Proposal  could potentially look.

 

 “Imagine how much stronger we’d all be if we had this well-stocked AWSC tool in our diplomatic and public policy pouch…Put that in your spinach pipe…”

 

The  fuller text, written for the layman to grasp , is at the link above  and below.  American World Service Corps National Service (AWSCNS) Congressional Proposal   – provides the opportunity for every U.S. citizen, and every other person residing in the United States, between the ages of 18 and 74 to perform a 1-2-year period of peaceful, non-militarized, voluntary national service.

National service opportunities are provided through civilian service in a federal, state, or local government programs or with community-based agencies, 501-c-3s, or entities as outlined in the proposal who are engaged in meeting human, educational, environmental, public safety needs. and job and development goals at home and abroad.

Uses transferable educational, housing, health, tax credit, etc., incentives to build, over a seven-year period, the AWSCNS to one million volunteers per year.

Includes as part or all of its funding a nontraditional funding mechanism (NTFM) via a  social media, web-driven, publicly viewable  spreadsheet donation system to voluntarily inspire the Forbes 400, and other mega-rich groups and individuals, to voluntarily underwrite an investment in 21,000,000 Americans doing peaceful national service over a generation.

Proposes that this robust, peaceful national service program be used to inspire complementary national service programs by other nations; so that the world shifts the emphasis from relying on military solutions to vexing problems to peaceful development oriented solutions that national service armies can provide.  Requires each person, before induction, to be examined physically and mentally for classification for fitness to perform.

The Do-Gooders  platoons…

UnorthodoxFinancing

From the American World service Corps National Service Congressional Proposal

(G)                Donations by the Forbes Richest Americans  (The  2% Forbes 400 Solution)                                                                Over the last 30+ years, the wealth of America’s richest taxpayers has increased disproportionately as compared to the stagnated and declining wealth increase among America’s low and middle classes.  Fed Chair Allan Greenspan expressed his concern about the increasing income and wealth disparity between upper and lower classes in his March 2, 2005 testimony before Congress.  His answer to spreading wealth was to increase educational opportunities for Americans.  As Greenspan noted, the GI Bill of Educational Rights gave America an opportunity to build and strengthen their middle class.  The AWSC proposals increase America’s educational quality and capacity, while building our economy and national character

(H)                Consequently, a public web site linked to the AWSC web site will list the Forbes Richest 400 Americans, who have benefited most from our nation’s human and physical infrastructure.  Merely to be on this list in 2015, one had to be a BILLIONAIRE worth 1.7 billion.

Those who live in luxury bestowed in large part by the skill and education of all Americans will be asked at the web site, “What have you contributed this year to help make the world safer for today and tomorrow’s children?   Each month the web site will list donations that America’s richest have made to implementing the AWSC and reducing its cost to America’s taxpayers.

(I)                      Donations by certain low tax paying corporations.  — A large number of Fortune 500 corporations annually pay little or no taxes, according to such organizations as Citizens for Tax Justice (CTJ) and the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP).  At the AWSC website, with additional information supplied by other relevant federal agencies and information sources, those corporations who have paid none, little, or received federal tax paybacks (negative taxes) for the past five years would be listed.  This section of the AWSC web site would strongly urge these light or none paying corporations to contribute to underwriting the cost of making the world safer for them, their businesses, and their children.  The site will remind them, including their stockholders, that by doing good — companies can do well.

These donations would be listed alongside their researched nominal and effective corporate tax rates and tax payments.  Such socially conscious donations could significantly reduce the AWSC’s cost.  For those who paid little, none, or negative taxes, Congress should not allow the donations to be tax deductible.  (See http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/markets/2016/03/07/27-giant-profitable-companies-paid-no-taxes/81399094/  for some details.)

(J)                    An AWSC spreadsheet for America’s highest compensated celebrities.

(K)                  An AWSC spreadsheet for America’s highest compensated athletes.

(L)                   An AWSC spreadsheet for America’s highest compensated CEOsCould these donate to AWSCNS escrowed account? http://www.forbes.com/lists/2012/12/ceo-compensation-12_rank.html  An AWSC spreadsheet listing CEO compensations of those who have received federal bail outs.

(M)                Charitable Trusts, Philanthropic Foundations, etc.  – Trusts and foundations may find the American World Service Corps meshes well with their goals of improving world and nation and reflect that in grants and donations.  If the Gates Foundation wants to eradicate AIDS, a robust army of American volunteers can make that happen by doing the hard, face-to-face groundwork.  If we want to reverse climate degradation, we will need more than 4,000 power point presenters, we will need tens of thousands of AWSC volunteers working daily for years with a variety of effective NGOs.  Foundations’ contributions to those NGOs (non-governmental organizations) working under the AWSC umbrella would also be listed at the AWSC site.

12)           Daily Stipend Costs of AWSC volunteers serving in NGOs

Initially, this AWSC proposal leaves the daily service stipends paid to those who volunteer for NGO service as the NGO’s funding responsibility.  However, the unorthodox (or as yet non-traditional) funding mechanisms listed here offer NGOs another means of funding some or all of their volunteers’ daily stipend expenses, as our proposed 2% Forbes 400 Donation graphic depicts.  Congress could allow those donated funds to cover daily stipend costs.

financing-awsc

DCStaffMet9-16

DC staff met 9-2016

Contact Title E-mail Company Phone Web Site Address
Ami Bera Leg Correspondent/Staff Assistant Shaefer.Bagwell@mail.house.gov House of Representative 202-225-5716 bera.house.gov 1535 Longworth House Office
James McGovern Legislative Asistant Russell.Halliday@mail.house.gov House of Representatives 202-225-6101 www.mcgovern.house.gov 438 Cannon HOB
Marcy Kaptur Legislative Director jenny.perrino@mail.house.gov House of Representatives 202-225-4146 2186 Rayburn Building
Tulsi Gabbard HillVets Fellow Daniel.snedden@mail.house.gov House of Representatives 202-225-4906 1609 Longworth House Office Building
Seth Moulton Policy Advisor margo.brown@mail.house.gov House of Representatives 202-225-8020 1408 Longworth Building
Chris Van Hollen Senior Legislative Assistant ken.cummings@mail.house.gov House of Representatives 202-225-5341 1707 Longworth H.O.B.
Krysten Sinema Leg Asst. Michael.Wong@mail.house.gov House of Representatives 202-225-9888 sinema.house.gov 1530 Longworth House Office Building
Raul Grijalva Leg director Kelsey.Mishkin@mail.house.gov House of Representatives 202-225-2435 http://grijalva.house.gov 1511 Longworth HOB
Xaviera Becerra Schedule/Education Emilio.Mendez@mail.house.gov House of Representatives 202-225-6235 1226 Longworth House Office Building
Louise Slaughter Legislative Assistant Jack.Spasiano@mail.house.gov House of Representatives  NY 28cd 585-697-0840 http://www.votelouise.com/ 2469 Rayburn HOB
Suzan DelBene Legislative Director ben.barasky@mail.house.gov House of Representatives (WA) 202-225-6311 delbene.house.gov 318 Cannon House Office Building
Scott Peters Chief of Staff Michelle.Dorothy@mail.house.gov House of Representatives Ca 202-225-0508 1122 Longworth House Office Building
Charles Rangel Pearson Fellow benjamin.garcia@mail.house.gov House of Representatives NY 202-225-4365 2354 Rayburn House Office Building
Adam Smith Legislative Assistant christy.hayek@mail.house.gov House of Representatives WA 202-225-8901 http://www.electadamsmith.com/Contact 2264 Rayburn HOB,
Jared Huffman Legislative Assistant Nicholas.Hromalik@mail.house.gov House of Representatives, CA 202-225-5161 1630 Longworth House Office Building
Chellie Pingree Legislative Assistant joe.marro@mail.house.gov House of Representatives, ME (202) 225-6116 www.pingree.house.gov 2162 Rayburn
Morgan Griffith Legislative Counsel kristin.seum@mail.house.gov House of Representatives, VA 202-225-3861 1108 Longworth House Office Building
Mike Thompson Leg Director Stephanie.Newman@mail.house.gov House of Represetnatives Leg Dir 202-225-3311 http://mikethompson.house.gov/Biography/index.asp 231 Cannon Office Building
Tulsi Gabbard Manager Front Desk Katherina.Deery@mail.house.gov House Representative Vt (202)225-4906 1609 Longworth Building
Bernie Sanders Leg Aide ian.rockwell@@sanders.senate.gov US Senate – Scheduler 202-224-5141 2233 Rayburn
Barbara Boxer Foreign Relations Senator US Senate Leg  Aide Boxer 202-224-3553 www.Boxer.senate.gov 112 Hart Building
Alan Lowenthal Legislative Assistant anne.nguyen@mail.house.gov Washington, DC Office 202-225-7924 www.lowenthal.house.gov 108 Cannon House Office Bldg
Tulsi Gabbard Manager Front Desk Daniel.Snedden@mail.house.gov House Representative Vt (202)225-4906 1609 Longworth Building

 

The American World Service Corps National Service  (AWSCNS) Congressional Proposal  opens up filled jobs, provides new jobs, trains and educates for the environmentally beneficial jobs and needs of the future, makes stronger friends and neighbors with enhanced civic IQs.

Over ten years ago, People’s Lobby started working on the AWSCNS Congressional Proposal with a unanimous endorsement from the 2006 California State Democratic Convention.

This Returned Peace Corps Volunteer (RPCV) did not think that a decade later I’d still be pushing to enact this needed, overwhelmingly good, and cost effective piece of legislation.

The AWSCNS would ramp up over seven years by adding about 150,000 paid volunteers per year.  In the seventh year, one million volunteers would serve annually through already effective do-good organizations, such as the Peace Corps, AmeriCorps, Habitat, Doctors Without Borders, Head Start, Mercy Corps, Oxfam, Americans Friends Service Committee, TechnoServe, Heifer, Red Cross, International Rescue Committee, State Conservation Corps, In-Need Schools, Hospitals Therapy Wards, Homes for the Elderly, etc.  After 20 years of one million serving annually, directly addressing needs, and building sustainability, Congress would consider the AWSCNS for sun-setting after its 27th year.

In 2009 Congress implemented the Ted Kennedy Serve America Act.  Nonetheless, even at its proposed unmet largest, the Kennedy Serve America Act is 1/4th the size of what is called for in the AWSCNS Proposal,  and, as we warned, its budget was whittled on soon after memories of Senator Ted Kennedy faded.

Could you set up a time to meet with the Senato/Congressman, Chief of Staff, Legislative Director, or appropriate senior staffer during the week of September 18th-24th in hopes of building additional support for the AWSCNS Proposal?

The AWSC National Service Proposal would stimulate and strengthen America’s ability to peacefully and economically solve problems.  With its proposed coming-of-age non-traditional funding mechanisms moved further along by Gates and Buffet pushing their Giving Pledge, enacting teh proposed AWSCNS  could cost effectively involve the richest .1% in voluntarily building worldwide sustainability.  A summary of some of these benefits is here.

For a PowerPoint overview of the essence of the AWSCNS Proposal, view the first 12 slides at this link.

When I discuss the details of the AWSCNS Proposal to large audiences, they overwhelmingly support it.  It would do the same among the constituent audiences of those visionary congresspersons who push, introduce, and support it.

Included in the AWSCNS Proposal is a call for other nations to deploy their own similar armies peacefully on the battlefields of need.  In 1989 People’s Lobby was instrumental in moving visionary Congresswoman Boxer to introduce HR 1807, calling for the creation of a US-USSR Peace Corps.  Recently, we have asked her to do it again before she retires, but her ride into the sunset may be too close.

Therefore, we’d like to see whether you would be interested in resurrecting this visionary piece of HR1807 legislation.  Imagine how much more beneficial Bear and Eagle relations would be today if 20,000+ Americans, Soviet Unioners, and Russians had served together by 2016. View 8 slides on the US-Russian Peace Corps here.

It is never too late to start something that could do a lot of good. Investing in volunteers in do-good groups in turbulent political and climate challenged environments often returns the most good, especially in communities with needs.

We look forward to meeting with you or appropriate DC staff in September.  Thanks.

Dwayne Hunn Ph.D.

People’s Lobby Executive Director

415-383-7880

Represented by Congressman Huffman, California’s 2nd

AWSC summary

“This country runs on laws.  If you want to change the country, write its laws.”

Ed & Joyce Koupal, founders of People’s Lobby

(Draft page… rebuilding site.)

Early in 2005 People’s Lobby (PLI )initiated the American World Service Corps National Service Congressional Proposal (AWSCNS) .  It is neither a direct nor indirect initiative with which People’s Lobby has had past successes.

It is a congressional proposal that benefits America and the world and raises the public policy IQ for both and requires introduction through visionary legislators.  Enacting the AWSC Congressional Proposals would:

  • Remind citizens that they are the ultimate source of laws;
  •  Involve citizens in healthy civic affairs;
  • Strengthen the thinning character and patriotic fabric of the nation;
  • Address the root causes of terror, refugee  tragedies, climate devastation, etc.;
  • Press red and blue-staters, red-necks and blue-noses and humans of all pigments into working on and learning from pressing domestic and international problems;  
  • Build a one million strong all volunteer peaceful national service corps by inspiring  more to serve in already existing do-good organizations such as Peace Corps, AmeriCorps, Habitat, Doctors Without Borders, Head Start, Red Cross, International Rescue Committee, Oxfam, Mercy Corps, State Conservation Corps, FINCA, TechnoServe, Fuller Center for Housing, Amnesty International, Greenpeace, U.N. Refugee Agency, American Friends Service Committee,  as well as in local non-profits, schools, homes for aged, physical therapy wards, penal institutions, etc.
  • Involve rich and poor, young and old , red necks and blue noses in service to the nation and world that will dramatically raise national and international civic actions and IQs.   

***

The American World Service Corps Congressional Proposal neither establishes a big new bureaucracy nor is expensive.

It is not merely shorthand for a bigger Peace Corps, although it will make the Peace Corp much bigger than it has ever been.

It is envisioned as a small administrative office that does some marketing, disseminates paychecks to its full time volunteers, and takes care of their tuition and other post service grants and gratuities. It is a moniker, a name tag that allows us to model what should be the new 21st century army that  we and other nations should be sending out into the world. If one makes such service meaningful, it  can be as or more valuable than most college educations.

Its primary raison d’etre is to send many more volunteers to rub shoulders and do good through the already existing and effective do-good organizations such as  those mentioned above.

These organizations know what to do with additional full time human resources.

This AWSC Umbrella heightens the effectiveness of these groups by enlarging them at a time when complexities and needs are growing.  As the Greatest Generation passes, we need to involve the push-button, play-game generation as well as the more mature in active service, which builds the nation’s character and prepares us to better handle the real world.

 Summary

The American World Service Corps National Service  (AWSCNS) Congressional Proposal would field a robust, peaceful, productive, paid volunteer army of American do-gooders who would choose to serve at home or abroad.  It would reduce conflicts, address needs, and make life easier for our military and healthier for our citizens.  It is NOT another program or large bureaucracy.  It is merely an umbrella, a moniker that feeds more volunteers into proven existing do-good organizations and non-profits.

How Fund?

In addition to the traditional revenue streams listed in the AWSCNS proposal that would fund this investment in our people and world, we have added nontraditional, voluntary, revenue streams that could fund this entire generation-long National Service Program without taxing Americans.

The Gates & Buffett Giving Pledge has helped PLI’s long effort to establish a  publically displayed Socially Conscious Giving Spreadsheet whose fund are escrowed to only be spent on AWSC volunteers who serve.  Click though to view the Forbes .0006% Powerpoint.

Undersized yesterday –>today’s growing problems

John Kennedy told former Senator Harris Wofford that he wanted the Peace Corps to reach 100,000 a year because, “It would then be considered serious.  In one decade, it would reach 1 million volunteers.”  In the last 54+ years, only about 220,000 PCVs have trained and served, meaning perhaps 180,000+ have completed service.  For more than a generation, we have failed to come close to implementing a vision that would cost effectively and dramatically reduce poverty, ignorance, hatred, and terrorist recruitment.  We missed the opportunity to dramatically increase our public policy IQ, understand the dynamics of the Global Village and its economies, and reduce the hatred fired at our troops, and care for and understand environmental needs.

We are leaving big problems to the next generation.  We owe them a big, but cost effective, AWSCNS solution.

Think of your favorite local non-profits. Could they accomplish more good if they had one or a few full time volunteers aged from a fresh 18 to an experienced 70+?  Could they enrich your community and raise its public policy IQ?

Joint Peace Corps

PLI’s AWSCNS Proposal urges that other nations emulate similar national service programs.  Imagine what could happen if the nations of the world built robust national service programs that rivaled the size of it militaries.

Imagine if People’s Lobby’s successful efforts in 1989 to have Congresswoman Boxer introduce HR1807, the US-Soviet Peace Corps, had grown over the years.  Imagine how much safer and saner today’s world would be.

In July of 2016,  PLI discussed with Senator Boxer’s staff  the possibility of reintroducing an updated HR 1807 .  Give her a call and express your support before she leaves office .

If you would like to read 60+OpEds detailing benefits of an AWSC, click OEN OpEds.  For some videos, click videos.  For one of several 30 minute overviews at the videos link, try this Mel Presents.

If able and willing, press your candidates or respected celebrities to help move this AWSC solution.  Thanks.

  Power Point  Summary

Today we have tooo many who pontificate about what should be done to address foreign and domestic needs who have little or no grassroots experience with those problems.  A robust AWSC National Service program smartens our and other nations in how to more cost effectively and peacefully address domestic and world problems.

Click  Why Need AWSC Umbrella

to view Power Point overview of why AWSC National Service umbrella is needed, including reference to non-traditional funding mechanisms that piggy-back on the Gates Buffet Giving Pledge –>

Uber-rich <2% solution for world peace  Will super-rich step up?

Embeded chart reflecting how the Forbes 400 alone, using one of the AWSC Congressional Proposal’s non-traditional funding mechanisms could easily fund this wise AWSCNS investment.

How to fund without taxing:

forbes006funds

 

Q&As

Q& As

Questions? Contact dh@peopleslobby.us

  1. Why bother with an AWSC,  we have the Ted Kennedy National Service Act of 2009.

The Ted Kennedy National Service Act made “some” laudatory steps forward, but has since been marginalized, click here for more details.

2.  Why even introduce the World Service Corps legislation?It is too long a shot to have a Congressperson carry the legislation.

Many pieces of legislation originate with constituents.  Corporate lobbyists draft innumerable pieces of legislation to benefit their clients, in which well-funded ALEC  (American Legislative Exchange Council) specializes.  True persons, versus constitutionally debatable corporate persons, have every right to have their representatives carry legislation.   Congressional reps are our employees.

If passage of this legislation is debatable, then have the debate begin.  Attentive debate forces thinking.  Thinking can lead to understanding.  Deeper understanding improves the nation and world.

3. We don’t need another big government program.Why start a new bureaucratic program?

This is structured as a public – non profit joint venture, using existing organizations that have stellar service records to help more Americans combat terror and ignorance by doing what American do best — serve at home and abroad.  It does not start a new, big government program.  It expands the solid, beneficial experiences American can live and learn within existing do-good organizations.  The WSC funnels America’s best resources – can-do, productive Americans into serving America and the world’s needs.

4.  America doesn’t have the revenue to fund this.We already have a huge deficit.  Why shouldn’t we just save the money?

The failure to implement a policy such as this decades ago is the reason we have humongous war costs, and this contributes to our soaring deficits.  This is a long tern answer to reducing our future monetary and human costs, and it is immediately more cost effective than resorting to costly warfare.

By 2004 the yearly cost of maintaining each of our 1.4 million volunteer military just in the Defense Department budget touched $300,000. When the conservatively estimated war supplemental, off budget costs, and some of the veterans and social costs are added to the 2006 military budget, the annual costs of maintaining each of military personnel soars over $600,000 annually. See  “It’s the economy, stupid..” in Coverage section for detailed numbers.

The cost of maintaining a Peace Corps volunteer for a year is about ten percent (about $40,000 per year) of maintaining a military personnel, and there are no-post service social, medical, physiological, or educational costs, only benefits.

By 1970, when President Kennedy wanted one million Peace Corps volunteers to be serving in the world, we had over 400,000 soldiers in Vietnam.  The conservatively portrayed Vietnam War budget item was $16,260,000,000, making the cost per American soldier just in Vietnam over $39.000.  The cost of a PCV at that time was $7,700.  With just 20% of that year’s Vietnam War budget, we could have put 420,000 PCVs into the world in just that year.

Changing the world through the Army or Maine Corps is bloody expensive. World Service Corps is cost effective and all but irrefutable.  It is the means to reducing future costly expenditures.  It is how you cost effectively build and rebuild nations.

5. We do enough for the world, and the world doesn’t appreciate us enough as it is.Why should we waste our time, energy, and money on helping more?

Much of the world sees our foreign aid and policies as manipulative and premised on American corporations earning and controlling their economies.   Our service programs are not viewed in such a negative way.  The WSC will send red blooded Americans, from red and blue states, to serve at home and abroad. They will not be viewed as corporatizers.  They will not be giving handouts with string attached.  They will help where help is needed.  They will, in the proverbial sense, be helping people fish within their own cultures, not handing our American fish.

Although a dangerously increasing number of world citizens are disliking our policies, most world citizens still “like Americans.”  We cannot allow ignorance and terrorist ideas to subvert and win the hearts and minds of the world citizens who “like Americans.”

Our best foreign policy lies in letting the world know the true character of Americans doing service.  The AWSC is the antidote to the terrorists spreading ignorance about America and our being ignorant about the diverse and complex world.

6.  Since Peace Corps volunteers will be an agency that makes up part of the WSC international service, how many PCVs have and are serving in troubled spots like Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq?

From 1961-67, 462 PCVs served in Pakistan. None since.

From 1962-1979, 1,739 served in Afghanistan.  None since.

From 1962-1976, 1,863 served in Iran.  None since.

PCVs were never diplomatically placed in Iraq, North Korea, Cuba or Palestine and Israel.

In all of North Africa and the Middle East, they have only served in Morocco and Jordan.

In the fourteen nations from Egypt to Iran, 432+ million people reside.  To offset the image they are developing of America, 39 PCVs serve in Jordan.  That is about 1 for every 111 million people.

Today’s Peace Corps has only 7,733 serving in 71 countries. .. (Since 1961 only 178,000 trainees and volunteers have served in 138 countries.)

If you want to win the hearts of the troubled world, do you think it might be helpful to work amidst them in their mean streets and arid fields?

7.  Is it Christian to just wait till violence erupts against you and then just drop bombs?

Had we had a hundred thousand PCVs serving in these nations by now, as Kennedy envisioned, do you believe we would have lost about 2,000 American lives, unnumbered maimed and wounded, be looking at a conservatively covered $500 billion war bill over the last few years, and be looking forward to untold medical and social costs for our vets?

Peacefully warring against the causes of terror is always much cheaper and healthier than warring.  The longer one puts off peacefully warring, the more expensive becomes the later military cost.

8.  We shouldn’t even suggest peaceful, productive national service, even if it would benefit America or the world because it might induce this administration to return the draft.

In the 2004 Congress a bill and resolution were introduced to resurrect and rebuild the Selective Service System (draft).  an extra $28 million in funds was directed to revive Selective Service offices.

Legislation is already on the table in both the House and the Senate, in the form of twin bills SB89 and HR 163, “in order to staff up for a protracted war on terrorism,” writes Adam Stutz, from Project Censored.  Meanwhile, the Selective Service System has received an extra $28 million in funds for this year’s budget to fill all 10,350 draft board positions and 11,070 appeals board slots nationwide and put “troops on the ground in 85% of all American high schools to make sure no one between 18-25 years old slips through the cracks. Schools cannot very easily claim conscientious objector status, by the way. “Buried deep in the 670 pages of the No Child Left Behind Act there is a provision which requires that public high schools give military recruiters access to facilities and also contact information for every student — or else face a cutoff of federal aid,” writes Connor Freff Cochran of AlterNet.

U.S. Preparing For Military Draft in Spring of 2005, “Legislation in the works: Selective Service System already mobilizing,”  May 6, 2004 Issue, Utne Reader.

In 2005 the former Marine UNSCOM weapons inspector Scott Ritter said the we should get ready for the draft and said on Randi Rhodes Air America that he believes plans have been discussed in the Executive Office to attack Iran by mid-June.  He accused Secretary of State Rice of lying when she claimed that plans have not been laid for such an attack.

In mid-June 2004 the Selective Service offices were told to be ready to be operational.

That (invading Iran) , he says, will mandate the inevitable re-institution of a draft. “A breakdown of our military’s ability to handle these adventures. Congress will be confronted with that and congress will have to take action. So, the blame will be thrust on the shoulders of congress, and the Bush administration will say ‘Well, we didn’t want this’. But, it had to happen.”

Arms Inspector Turned Peace Activist Says Get Ready for the Draft, Published on Saturday, March 19, 2005 by the Hudson Valley News (New York.

  1. If a military draft returns, shouldn’t an alternative already be passed into law and working.  The work of the WSC would make life easier for the strong military by giving them fewer crisises to face and thereby keeping their morale high.  We need a strong military.  The military needs a corps of peaceful, productive volunteers, so that their job is clearer and safer.

—–  under construction, not completed…

9. . How many people currently volunteer on an annual basis for the organizations (e.g., Habitat for Humanity) that will be covered by this bill?

Peace Corps since till 2016 = 220,000 PCVstrained and served since its 1961 inception.  Best year 1969 with about 15,000.  Since then budget and emphasis cut.

2016 = 6,800

Americorps

Headstart  60% of eligible pre-school children are in Head             Start, and only 3% of eligible infants and toddlers are in Early            Head Start. In Maryland, about 25% of eligible children under the       age of six are in Head Start and Early Head Start.

Head Start is for the poorest children  74% of Head Start families are at or below the poverty level. These children are often the farthest behind in learning to read and learning the alphabet. Yet       Head Start makes a difference: in one year these students go from             the 16th percentile in vocabulary to almost the national norm.

Mikulski Says Bush Head Start Budget Forces Local Communities to Make “Bad Choices” 22-Jul-2003 CONTACT: Melissa Schwartz

http://mikulski.senate.gov

President’s 2005 budget provides just enough money to allow Head start  to reach a mere half of all eligible children.

Habitat volunteers

9.  How do the stipend/pay and benefits (e.g., educational) earned in the program compare to those received by people volunteering for military service?

In 2006 Congressman Murtha has used $150,000 figure to estimate signing/educational bonuses used to attract military recruits, which has been increasingly difficult.

Depending on what “kickers” one includes, military recruits are offered from 20,000 to 40,000 to 90,000 to $162,000 in signing and educational bonuses to volunteer.

ABC News: Army Offers Bigger Bonuses for Enlistment January 22, 2006 |

Last year the Army fell 7,000 recruits short of its goal of 80,000 new troops, the largest recruiting shortfall in decades….

Last month Congress approved a doubling of Army signing bonuses, meaning a new recruit could earn as much as $40,000 just for signing on the dotted line.The amount is $20,000 for new reservists. An active duty soldier with a hard-to-fill job who meets all the right criteria could earn a staggering $90,000 for re-enlisting…

Also, the Army will boost the amount of student loans it can repay to $65,000. This amount, when combined with the Montgomery GI Bill, will offer recruits up to $72,424 to pursue a higher education…

Source:  ABC News: Army Offers Bigger Bonuses for Enlistment January 22, 2006 | Get Your Local News and Weather

10. How much will the program cost under the primary bill assuming the participation rates the bill anticipates and including accrual for benefits as they are earned?

America’s World Service Corps (AWSC) would ramp up by about 140,000 per year until it meets its quotient of one million Americans serving annually under the umbrella of AWSC.

AWSC full time working volunteers would serve through existing, established organizations who already have much of the infrastructure in place to place full time volunteers into effective service.  In some cases:

  • Ramping up to handle more volunteers should not costs these organizations much since much or most of their infrastructure is already in place.
  • There would be some additional costs to handle the additional volunteers.Over the course of a few years these additional per volunteer costs should fall as economies of scale settle in.  So in time the per volunteer cost will not add much to their existing per volunteer costs.
  • In many cases, assistance from domestic communities and foreign nations, who will be grateful for the volunteers work, will be expected. and may provide housing and other amenities that keep costs in check.

Half of AWSC organizations are Non-Governmental Organization (NGOs).

  • Daily living expenses of volunteers to these organizations would be borne by NGOs thereby reducing those costs from federal responsibility.
  • Daily living expense of volunteers choosing to work in the governmental organizations would be a federal or state governmental cost.

Educational investment bonus:

The Federal government will be responsible for paying the cash readjustment allowance as well as the promised educational/tuition bonus for completing two years WSC service.  Amounting to:

  • Two years of community college tuition and fees which in 2004 was estimated at $2,076 annually at public community college.(E:\World Service\Research Downloads\AACC Community college Facts.htm  )
  • Two years of public college or university tuition and fees which in 2004 averaged approximately $6,600 nationwide.

E:\World Service\Research Downloads\College costs 4yr school spike – Oct_ 19, 2004.htm

  • Consequently, the federal government would be responsible for an investment of approximately$17.200 in America’s best foreign and domestic policy resource – its can-do people.

Annual per volunteer living costs

Estimates to support a full-time domestic or international serving volunteer range from $20,000 to $40,000 (approximate annual cost to support a PCV today). When cost efficiencies are melded with extra costs, a fair estimated gross estimated cost for an AWSC volunteer annual cost is:

  • $30,000 per volunteer.

Estimating that half of AWSC volunteers choose to serve in NGOs halves this annual daily maintenance cost per volunteer to:

  • $15,000 per volunteer.

Readjustment allowance

An readjustment allowance will be given to each full-time volunteer who completes service that is equivalent to that received by a Peace Corps volunteer.  In 2005, a PCV who completed two years of service received a cash readjustment of about $6,500.

When the readjustment cash allowance + Annual per volunteer living costs +  Educational investment bonus  is totaled, the amount of federal responsibility amounts to: ($15,000+$17,200 + $6,500 = $38,700)

Depending on how one views the value and importance of education, $17,200 of that government expenditure on formally educating Americans may not be considered a cost, but a long term investment in America’s economic future, insight and resiliency.  If you believe in the value of investing in education for you, your child or your nation’s future, then the $38,700 cost tumbles back to not being a cost but to being an “earned investment.”   So the cost to the Federal coffers may again be estimated at about:

  • $15,000

Depending on how one values the education/service Americans receive by serving in pockets of need and the:

*     Cost saving benefits and reduction in future domestic costs such service accrues to local communities.

*     Reductions in international disdain, hatred, and ignorance such service does.

*     Strong likelihood that such service could erase the next trillions of dollar expenditure another kind of
Vietnam, Afghanistan, or Iraq war causes.

Then the $15,000 annual volunteer maintenance cost might be consider minimal or zero.  If you believe such service and investment benefits local and foreign needs, dependency on foreign aid, military incursions, etc., and thereby reduces America’s resource and human costs, then the $15,000 may fall to:

  • Below $15,000 and in some analysis amount to $0. per volunteer cost and a net savings to our nation.

About a half dozen states have Conservation Corps programs.     (California has a CCC whose budget and outreach has fallen since about 1992. ??check) Some AWSC volunteers may choose to do their service through them, further reducing the federal annual service cost.  Those states with existing programs whoalready have an infrastructure in place willl find a slight increase in costs, but they will also find that they are better able to preserve, prepare, and conserve state environmental and social needs, thereby reducing future costs.

Depending on one’s perspective about the importance of repairing levies, improving streams and trails, involving young in conservation and appropriate technology projects, the added state costs will be

  • Nominal or negligible state costs where CC programs already exist.
  • And cause federal day-to-day costs to fall.

Increasing participation in state conservation corps (as will participation in all the other AWSC organizations) also gives states the ability to better prepare for and more quickly recover from natural disasters that seem to be increasing.  Better preparation and recovery reduces the economic costs of disasters.  Quicker recovery cost effectively re-ignites business and economic recovery, which reduces federal costs.

Implementing the AWSC legislation may inspire more states to institute state conservations corps, so that their states young people who volunteer to serve their state and nation via conservation and appropriate technology work could benefit from the federal educational bonuses.  This would reduce federal day-to-day costs and keep the educational bonuses costs the same.  In effect, this would be another reduction to federal costs in implementing the AWSC program.

  • Slight reduction in federal costs.

One year volunteers

How many ot the AWSC volunteers would choose to serve for one, two, or extend for a third year?

Using the assumption that half would choose to serve for one year and half for two years (of couse, this could vary and we hope most do two years  but until our crystal ball clears up or GAO shows up this is merely a simplified estimate), the federal educational bonus cost would be halved for half of the volunteers.  So, after serving a year, the federal education/tuitition investment payments would be  $17.200/2 = $8,600 rather than $17 .200.  After ramping up to one million volunteers over the AWSC initial ramp up period of seven years, the eight and ninth year and every year thereafter would see a cost reduction of approximately:

  • $8,600,000,000per year
  • Or a reduction in educational investment/bonus of $8.600. for each of approximately a half million volunteers.

If a quarter choose to serve on year the annual saving would be:

  • $4,300,000,000 per year.

Ancillary cost benefits/reductions

Some well-off baby boomers, retirees, etc. may decide not to take the bonuses they have earned and instead choose to dedicate it to a community educational scholarship fund or foundation or if they were deep-rooted believers in laissez faire could choose to return it to the federal treasury.   Donating it to others education would strengthen the nation and reduce crime, causing a savings.  Since few seem to live by often expressed beliefs of pure volunteering and not accepting government investments, the savings here may be nominal.

  • Nominal savings

Financial mechanism savings

The three sources of financing provide further cost savings.

  1. Federal Tax Revenues
  2. AWSC web site listing Low or Non-Taxpaying large Corporations.

Using research from CTJ (Citizens for Tax Justice), Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy ((ITEP). and government sources, which relying on public informing, will asks these corporations what they will donate to underwriting, without further tax deductions,  to reduce taxpayers contribution to funding AWSC.

Corporate Income Taxes in the Bush Years, released Sept. 22 by Citizens for Tax Justice (CTJ) and the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, finds 82 of 275 companies CTJ examined enjoyed at least one year in 2001–2003 in which they paid no federal income taxes yet received billions of dollars in outright tax rebates. In 2003 alone, 46 of the companies paid no federal income taxes and in some cases, received tax rebates.

The companies, all on the Fortune 500 list, were profitable in each of the three years analyzed.

  1. AWSC web site listing the Forbes Richest.

This web site will list what Forbes Richest donate to underwrite the building of AWSC.  Several billionaires and multimillionaires, from the likes of Gates,  Buffet, Soros, Turner, Walmart family members, etc, might contribute to funding the cost of sending and investing in America’s best resources – its people – in order to build a safer, saner world in which business grows.

One should not discount the strong possibility that billions could be raised by funding mechanisms #2 & #3.  Each year perhaps $1-4 billion could be raised via Funding Sources 2 & 3.  Estimated reduction in federal costs:

  • $1.000,000,000. – 4,000,000,000 federal cost reduction.

Summary of Costs

Depending on your perspective as to whether the costs of the AWSC lean heavily toward long-term cost reducing “investments” or non-beneficial social  andthereby “pure costs,”  totaling the above cost/savings estimates would place the annual per volunteer costs somewhere between $0 – $20,000 per volunteer. Using the mid line as an estimate puts the cost at:

  • $10,000 annual volunteer cost

By the seventh year when the AWSC would have a full one million Americans serving this estimated cost would be:

  • $10,000,000,000 per year.

Reducing the $10 billion amount by the education investment bonuses that would be forgone by those who are One year volunteers reduces that annual cost by $4,300,000,000 per year to:

  • $5,700,000,000 per year.

Reducing the $5.7 billion amount by the mid-range estimate of $2 billion of donated funds received by low/non-tax paying corporations and mega wealthy brings this total to:

  • $3,700,000 per year

This $3.7 billion averages to about two weeks worth of Iraqi War costs over the 2004-2006 years.

Use the AWSC to eliminate one war over the next generation and we give our economic and human resources room to boom.

Putting eight months of funding the present Iraq War into a lock box would fund the AWSC for about 27 years.

Were a detailed cost/benefit analysis done, the AWSC would cost even less than the $3.7 billion annual estimate listed here.

Were long term, hidden, supplemental, etc costs (see PLEF WSC showing cost per MP at $600,000 annually) of the Iraq War included in these calculations it would take only a few months of an Iraq War to cover all of the AWSC costs.

IF the AWSC keeps us out of one war each generation or two, how does one enter the savings in loved ones, blood, and dollars?

How to prepare for disasters

Marin Independent Journal                             

MARIN VOICE                                September 23, 2005

Dwayne Hunn

Another Katrina will happen.  Another earthquake will.  With Mother Nature stuff happens, and you can’t always avoid it.  However, you can competently and humanely temper its aftermath.

Another Iraq and Vietnam may happen.  Another extremist act may.  With politics and policies, stuff happens.  However, you can avoid a lot of stupid policies from becoming bloody economic disasters.

Ø      How?  By making Americans and the world smarter.

Ø      How do we do that?  Give Americans a visionary program in which a significant number serve, share, understand, learn, and teach their young.  From that, America grows a super majority of smarter citizens.  That super majority then votes America away from stupid, costly mistakes that cost us dearly in blood and economy.

Ø      What is that vision?  It’s the citizen-initiated World Service Corps proposed in Congress.

If passed in Congress this year, the proposed laws would annually ramp up America’s best resource until by the sixth year one million Americans, or .6 of 1% of those aged 20 – 60-plus, would voluntarily serve in their choice of the Peace Corps, AmeriCorps, Habitat for Humanity, Head Start, Doctors Without Borders, Red Cross, International Rescue Committee, OxFam, State Conservation Corps, etc.

Why would Americans volunteer to do the WSC?  Because Americans enjoy serving, like playing on great teams, and prefer building over wrecking.  In addition, the proposed legislation would offer simple, cost effective federal financial incentives to volunteers.

Upon completing service, WSC members would receive two years of community plus two years of state college tuition, equivalent educational loan pay off, or equivalent investment in Medical or IRA Accounts, which would be transferable to family relatives.  This updated mini GI Educational Bill of Rights gives the do-good governmental and non-governmental organizations the mix of enthusiastic, experienced, can-do Americans, aged 18 – 60+, who make the world safer and better.

In less dangerous and testing times, John Kennedy wanted the Peace Corps to put a million PCVs into the world.  Then, he felt, it would become a significant force bettering the world and America.  Today, one ofAmerica’s best and most cost effective programs has only about 177,000 returning Peace Corps volunteers.  The World Service Corps proposals legislate a million of our most cost effective resources into dealing with and learning from world and domestic problems.  It does so at a total (stipend plus incentives) annual cost less than 1/10th what it costs to maintain each of our military personnel, which is soaring past $500,000 each when supplemental and off-budget costs are added.  What a huge, long run cost and blood savings bargain.

Sure, a million WSC members physically improve the world.  They do so by working shoulder-to-shoulder with the world that wants to idolize them.  Perhaps more importantly, they enlighten the world’s superpower, whose steps can improve or destroy chunks of the world, by directly exposing Americans to global village needs.

Only about 15% of Americans take out passports.  Many of them have corporate or Club Med world experiences.  The WSC exposes more Americans to the classroom of world needs, so that their voting decisions are based on real life experiences, rather than on forgettable TV designed for couch potatoes.

The WSC raises America’s political and policymaking IQ.  That, then, keeps American voters from stumbling into shortsighted, costly, or bloody policies that we could avoid by pursuing visionary, practical, cost-effective policies.

Imagine, if the WSC had been running for years.  Its incentives would have inspired more states to start Conservation Corps.  The day Katrina struck thousands of those new and expanded state Conservation Corps, plus thousands of Red Cross, Americorps, Habitat, Doctors Sans Borders, International Rescue Committee, etc., volunteers would have been moving into Mississippi and Louisiana, with or without a Federal Emergency Management Agency passport.

We need peaceful, productive Special Forces to handle today’s special needs, as well as to reduce terrorist recruitment.

The World Service Corps www.worldservicecorps.us needs your local and national support.  Before the next hurricane or earthquake, before the next terrorist act, citizens need to enlighten local, state, and federal politicians, so they will enact the WSC legislation to send a million can-do Americans into our and the world’s classroom of needs.

 

Dwayne Hunn of Mill Valley is executive director of People’s Lobby and sponsor of the World Service Corps proposals.  He served in the Peace Corps.