People’s Lobby Inc. (501c4)
People’s Lobby Education Foundation (501c3)
5/11/2018
Mr. Warren Buffett:
Because of my service as a Peace Corps Urban Community Development volunteer in Mumbai, India from 1966-1968, I write hoping you will pen some supportive words for People’s Lobby’s nontraditional funding mechanism (NTFM). The NTFM will fund fielding 21,000,000 Americans into peaceful, healthy national service over the ensuing 27 years via enacting its American World Service Corps (AWSC) Congressional Proposal.
Peace Corps service exposed me to the engrained disparities of life and provided the “why” that has me pushing People’s Lobby’s American World Service Corps Congressional Proposal for over 10 years. The AWSC is a simple, effective means to involve the super-rich in funding millions of Americans to reduce ugly disparities. Those engrained disparities remain with me, like… Giving the few rupees I had to men scavenging through an 8’ mound of garbage piled in Bombay’s streets at midnight, watching a woman dying on the curbside of a well-traveled bridge with only a rag covering some of her breast and a white textured substance covering her pelvic area, staring at a child a few feet away from me while lying on my backpack at the train station as the child scooped and licked its own diarrhea…
I served in an era where working as a Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV) garnered one extra respect among a growing number of world citizens and humbled us PCVs via the enlightenment such service bestowed. It was an era when Americans could safely roam just about anywhere. It made me understand why John Kennedy wanted the Peace Corps to grow rapidly and robustly.
President Kennedy often expressed his visionary desire that “I would rather send the Peace Corps than the Marine Corps.” Today’s Peace Corps, at about 7000, is less than half the size it was when it reached its peak of about 15,000 from 1966-68.
Today the world Increasingly sees the United States as the world’s preeminent War Corps. Kennedy envisioned creating the world’s preeminent Peace Corps, inspiring other nations to build similar Service Corps. Dealey Plaza bled out that vision of Camelot.
During the Vietnam War era, 9+ million served on active duty in the military. Imagine how different the world would be if 9+ million Returned Peace Corps Volunteers (RPCV) had done active duty, rather than today’s meager 225,000 RPCVs sense its 1961 inception.
With climate weirding, violence, disasters, inequities, hatreds, etc., growing, isn’t it time that an Army of Gun-free Americans:
- implemented the vision JFK had for the Peace Corps (and later VISTA, AmeriCorps, etc.)?
- helped those who have little to live more securely?
- Initiated a healthy competition among fellow Americans and the rest of the world that emanated from the good their peaceful National Service programs produced?
- got to know fellow Americans and other nations citizens better via joint Peace Corps programs, such as Congresswoman Boxer’s HR 1807 of 1989, the US-Russian Peace Corps, which People’s Lobby inspired?
- walked the talk about “greatness” that we so often bestow on ourselves?
I write with the hope that you may lend your stature to the envisioned nontraditional funding mechanism (NTFM) as a visionary, worthy, and doable mechanism that could provide billions of donated dollars from billionaires and celebrities; which would field millions of Americans doing good at home and abroad.
If enacted as written, annually for the first seven-year ramp-up, approximately 140,000 additional Americans would voluntarily choose to serve full time for a year or two for modest pay in their choice of:
Listed below are some of the peace building platoons of AWSC that would be dramatically enlarged and invigorated by fielding a million volunteers a year to their worthwhile efforts, after the initial seven-year ramp-up of the AWSC to a million.
Peace Corps | AmeriCorps | Habitat |
Doctors Without Borders | Head Start | Mercy Corps |
Oxfam | Americans Friends Service Committee | TechnoServe |
Heifer | Red Cross | International Rescue Committee |
Mercy Ships | UN Volunteer Center | Fuller Center for Housing |
Boys & Girls Clubs | State Conservation Corps | In-need Schools |
Hospitals Therapy Wards | Homes for the Elderly | Local Do-good Non-profits |
Under-staffed needs | Community Health Clinics | Carter Center… Etc. |
By the seventh year, one million American World Service Corps volunteers of all ages, or less than four-tenths of 1% of those aged 18-70+, would annually serve for a year or two at home or abroad in existing governmental and non-governmental organizations. Only after 20 years could Congress consider sun-setting the AWSC legislation. Therefore, over 27 years about 21 million Americans would have peacefully served producing good and goodwill at home and abroad organizations such as those above.
Written in a mix of legalese and laymanese, the American World Service Corps National Service (AWSCNS) Congressional Proposal is at http://peopleslobby.us/awsc-congressional-proposal
To regain, retain, and rebuild our nation’s strength and stature, we need a robust AWSC to augment our proud military early in the 21st century. The AWSCNS will:
- Help keep us out of future trillion-dollar wars.
- Make service less dangerous for our military.
- Cost only a fraction of what the Iraq War has cost us.
- Recycle most of its investment into the American economy by rewarding volunteers with their choice of four years of college tuition or equivalent investment in IRA and Medical Savings Accounts, home down payments, or tax credits.
- Begin rebuilding our character, world image, and public policy IQ.
- Respond more quickly and competently to climate weirding and natural disasters with an AWSC that can more quickly help rebuild after disasters.
- Re-knit America’ s fraying unity by having Americans from different parts of the country address problems throughout the country and world. Serving together addressing needs provides a true picture of the world that peacefully educates and binds us together, making us saner and healthier.
Nontraditional funding mechanisms
The proposed legislation has traditional and non-traditional funding mechanisms. If visionary leadership pushed and educated the nation on our nontraditional revenue streams, they could potentially eliminate any reliance on traditional tax revenue funding.
Funding raised by the non-traditional and voluntary funding streams would go directly into an escrow account dedicated to funding the AWSC, as outlined here http://peopleslobby.us/awsc/financing-awsc and depicted via power point here http://peopleslobby.us/coverage/powerpoints/forbes006funds.
With individuals like yourself, Gates, Turner, Nader, et al., calling on billionaires to give more, now is the time to offer the AWSCNS as a perfect place to invest their money in a safer, more prosperous future. If just the Forbes 400 annually donated between 1– 2.5% of their wealth to an escrowed account to fund the AWSCNS, no taxpayer dollars would be needed to fund 21 million serving at home and abroad over 27 years.
Including AWSCNS public spreadsheets for the Forbes Top Jocks, Top Celebs, Top CEOs, non-tax paying corporations, etc. in this voluntary donated funding mechanism, further reduces this (1-2.5%) minuscule voluntary donation percentage from American billionaires, whose number is now around 600.
Escrowed donations would be tracked via a publicly-viewable spread sheet, which may inspire billionaires to donate and common citizens to notate who donates.
Many of us see this as just a small step that supports your Giving Pledge. It would be a wonderful way for the super-rich to provide a healthier and safer tomorrow by donating a minuscule portion of their wealth to a fund that involves millions of peaceful Americans in building a better today. Such wise but minimal investment today would be good for healthy business tomorrow.
Joint Peace Corps
Included in the AWSCNS Congressional Proposal are calls for other nations to emulate our AWSC National Service program, as well as to form joint Peace Corps programs with other nations, such as the legislation People’s Lobby influenced Congresswoman Boxer ( http://peopleslobby.us/awsc/aspc/ ) to introduce as House Resolution 1807 of 1989. (http://peopleslobby.us/hr-1807/ )
People’s Lobby would like to see the Joint US-USSR (Russia) Peace Corps pushed via the AWSCNS Congressional Proposal, and/or introduced as separate legislation. [An op-ed view here: (https://www.opednews.com/articles/Trump–Putin-buiild-army-by-Dwayne-Hunn-American-World-Service-Corps_American-World-Service-Corps-Congressional-Proposa_Americorps_Congress-170123-576.html&series=679 ).
The world could benefit greatly if U.S. and Russian relationships grew from a few astronauts working together in space to tens of thousands of Russian and American Peace Corps volunteers peacefully living, working, and serving together on earth.
Imagine what today’s world be like if 40,000 Russians and Americans had served together over the decades since HR1807 of 1989.
Info links
The top-row and drop-down links at the http://peopleslobby.us/ web site provide substantial information. Videos, power points, and audios are included in the drop-downs.
Video feeds are available at http://peopleslobby.us/coverage/video
Some YouTubes are at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRbaWfRantA
Some audio at http://peopleslobby.us/coverage/audio/
About 80+ related op-eds appear at http://www.opednews.com/author/author6270.html.
Joint U.S.-Russian Peace Corps links at http://peopleslobby.us/hr-1807/ http://peopleslobby.us/awsc/aspc/
Supportive words from a man as respected as you could help our efforts with either/or/and the AWSCNS proposal and Joint Country Peace Corps Proposals.
In summary, we hope you will provide supportive words for:
- Our nontraditional funding mechanisms that will encourage tentative congresspersons to think outside the funding box during this age of growing wealth inequities.
- The AWSC proposal itself.
- The reintroduction of HR 1807, the joint U.S.-Russian Peace Corps.
Thanks for considering.
Please contact me at any time for additional information, Dwayne Hunn, 415-383-7880, dh@peopleslobby.us, Facebook (Dwayne Hunn, People’s Lobby, and American World Service Corps Pages).
Sincerely,
Dwayne Hunn Ph.D. Executive Director, People’s Lobby
415-383-7880