Raise Taxes, Fire up the Draft.

[DEVIL]

On 1/25/2018 at 1:35 PM, matmacwc said:

Do you ever accept there might be a time and a place?  I can, but it better be end of the USA big.

        -Just as a side bar.

What about "the end of the USA big...over time" and righting the ship as early as possible? 

On 1/28/2018 at 4:03 PM, jazzdude said:

 

 

Actually funding the war and overseas contingencies by raising taxes, whether individual, corporate, or both. This avoids the problems with mandatory service or a draft, while making everyone have some ownership of what our country is doing overseas (through their pocketbook). Don't like paying more taxes? Well, better start writing your congressman or senator and let them know that you don't believe what we are doing is worth the cost. What if the president exercises his power to do short term engagements? Well, he'd better start talking to congress to fund the long term sustainment of the fight.

Added benefit, if OCO funding wasn't bottomless, maybe we won't have stupid deployments updating PowerPoints and making coffee.

 

Ding ding ding. Don't like the tax hike, hire law makers who respect spending money (and lives as an added bonus). 

[matmacwc]

On 1/28/2018 at 5:03 PM, jazzdude said:

Don't like paying more taxes? Well, better start writing your congressman or senator and let them know that you don't believe what we are doing is worth the cost. 

 

I did, I wrote and voted, and now my taxes are going down.

[Prozac]

15 hours ago, matmacwc said:

I did, I wrote and voted, and now my taxes are going down.

Yet the bills for our wars are not. 

[matmacwc]

2 hours ago, Prozac said:

Yet the bills for our wars are not. 

Thats not how budgets work, I expect Republicans to cut other things.

Edited January 31, 2018 by matmacwc

[Prozac]

Understood. However, the discussion has been about how to pay for the wars we are in.  The idea was to use your vote to let your representatives know you don’t approve of such liberal use of the military. Help me understand how cutting taxes while ratcheting up combat operations fits into the discussion. 

[matmacwc]

I expect budget cuts in non defense spending, did I write in Latin?

[jazzdude]

Let's cut funding/programs, as long as my program doesn't get cut.

[di1630]

I expect budget cuts in non defense spending, did I write in Latin?

Can we rename “defense spending” to “throw our money in the gutter trying to help third world Islamic shitholes become livable by western standards in futility spending” ?!?

I’m pro military spending but we absolutely waste a ton of tax dollars.

[Clark Griswold]

On the subject of the draft / conscription, this podcast was worth the listen:

‎Angry Planet: Service Without a Smile: A History of the Draft on Apple Podcasts

Question for the forum:

Is the draft not just a tool for military manpower?  Could it be used to build a shared national experience in a segment(s) of the younger generations (17-25 year olds)? 

The draft gets beat up pretty bad in the podcast, not hard to do as the professor interviewed lays out the major problems with it particularly recently in the Vietnam era but maybe it is what (overall) we need in our society among other programs to foster a connection(s) between the different racial, socio-economic, geographically separated, etc... groups in our country.

[Royal]

1 hour ago, Clark Griswold said:

On the subject of the draft / conscription, this podcast was worth the listen:

‎Angry Planet: Service Without a Smile: A History of the Draft on Apple Podcasts

Question for the forum:

Is the draft not just a tool for military manpower?  Could it be used to build a shared national experience in a segment(s) of the younger generations (17-25 year olds)?

It's certainly a complicated issue, Clark. The only definitive conclusion I've been able to come up with is that every single congressman and senator that votes for war, war spending, or any form of military intervention should be obligated to send one of their family members into the fray. It's easy to ship someone else's kid to the front line when yours is doing coke at a frat house at an Ivy League school; a little skin in the game would go a long way.

[HeloDude]

If the federal government cannot get enough volunteers to sign up to engage in a war...then perhaps that war shouldn’t be fought.

I’m against conscription as that doesn’t sound like a lot of personal freedom and liberty to me.

[Homestar]

45 minutes ago, HeloDude said:

If the federal government cannot get enough volunteers to sign up to engage in a war...then perhaps that war shouldn’t be fought.

I’m against conscription as that doesn’t sound like a lot of personal freedom and liberty to me.

Sometimes you don’t have the choice to fight a war. Thinking of WWII in particular. The country could not have fought that war without a draft and complete national buy-in. Now we have trillions of dollars of military resources and an all-volunteer military of about 2 million (including reserves). This means that the government can fiddle around with military engagements without moving the national needle when it comes to lives and treasure lost. This is a problem. Especially since the Executive can wage war without congressional consent. Also, the Congress has abdicated it constitutional authority to wage war. 
 

I wish there was a form of national service. I’d like it to be mandatory but that goes against the American ethos so I get it. 
 

The solution is to probably maintain a smaller all-volunteer active duty military and use a draft to fight existential threats. But then Russia and China would run the world. 

Edited February 14, 2021 by Homestar
Clarity

[jazzdude]

Even the American revolution relied on conscripts to fight for independence, so it's nothing new to our history.

The larger question is "what duty does a citizen have to their country?" And if there is no duty or responsibility, then why does the country/government exist?

The term “spirit of ‘76” refers to the colonists’ patriotic zeal and has always seemed synonymous with the idea that every able-bodied male colonist resolutely served, and suffered, throughout the eight-year war.

To be sure, the initial rally to arms was impressive.
...
But as the colonists discovered how difficult and dangerous military service could be, enthusiasm waned. Many men preferred to remain home, in the safety of what Gen. George Washington described as their “Chimney Corner.” Early in the war, Washington wrote that he despaired of “compleating the army by Voluntary Inlistments.” Mindful that volunteers had rushed to enlist when hostilities began, Washington predicted that “after the first emotions are over,” those who were willing to serve from a belief in the “goodness of the cause” would amount to little more than “a drop in the Ocean.” He was correct.
[/Quote]
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/myths-of-the-american-revolution-10941835/

[FDNYOldGuy]

4 hours ago, Clark Griswold said:

Is the draft not just a tool for military manpower?  Could it be used to build a shared national experience in a segment(s) of the younger generations (17-25 year olds)? 

I’m for SOME sort of national service out of high school. Make part of the deal for free college/trade/tech school require that one must spend 2-3 years in government service. It could be military, Peace Corps, a rebooted CCC that works on projects here at home, working in soup kitchens, whatever. Just something that would give kids right out of high school some direction, pay, life experience, a purpose, and help build some greater national bond, sense of the greater good, and a feeling of ownership in this country of ours.

Don’t want to go kinetic or support war; go work restoring national parks, cleaning up beaches, or help rebuild infrastructure. *(as @Royal said, if you’re in power and vote to go to war, your vote only counts if you had military service and/or your children are involved). Go help build schools in poor countries or work on human rights abroad. There are ways to serve the country that aren’t the military, so there should be acceptable options for people of all creeds.

All options should be structured similarly to enlisting in the military right out of high school, too: you get all your basic needs met and a few extra bucks in your pocket, but the focus is on service, camaraderie, and maybe getting a bit outside of a comfort zone while interacting with people of different backgrounds.

Would having a large government jobs program like this work perfectly? Probably not. But, it’s something that could really benefit the greater country and bring us closer together working toward common goals.

As for the arguments of being against the American way by “forcing” service, I see that point. But, on the flip side, I think that very American ethos is taken for granted by a lot of people. Just like kids born into wealth a couple generations down get affluenza and have no respect for the hard work it took to earn, a lot of people don’t understand the work it took to get America to this point and what it takes to keep it here. 

[Clark Griswold]

8 hours ago, Royal said:

It's certainly a complicated issue, Clark. The only definitive conclusion I've been able to come up with is that every single congressman and senator that votes for war, war spending, or any form of military intervention should be obligated to send one of their family members into the fray. It's easy to ship someone else's kid to the front line when yours is doing coke at a frat house at an Ivy League school; a little skin in the game would go a long way.

I echo the sentiment of wanting the truly priviledged and connected to have skin in the game, sometimes they do but most of the time of late not.  I don't think that could ever be done, legally, however they could at least feel the financial cost of it and that might give pause to them. 

An adjustable marginal tax rate applied to the highest income bracket to pay for all overseas military operations and logistics might cause the ruling classes to be more careful about writing checks for other bodies to cash.

4 hours ago, FDNYOldGuy said:

I’m for SOME sort of national service out of high school. Make part of the deal for free college/trade/tech school require that one must spend 2-3 years in government service. It could be military, Peace Corps, a rebooted CCC that works on projects here at home, working in soup kitchens, whatever. Just something that would give kids right out of high school some direction, pay, life experience, a purpose, and help build some greater national bond, sense of the greater good, and a feeling of ownership in this country of ours.

Don’t want to go kinetic or support war; go work restoring national parks, cleaning up beaches, or help rebuild infrastructure. *(as @Royal said, if you’re in power and vote to go to war, your vote only counts if you had military service and/or your children are involved). Go help build schools in poor countries or work on human rights abroad. There are ways to serve the country that aren’t the military, so there should be acceptable options for people of all creeds.

All options should be structured similarly to enlisting in the military right out of high school, too: you get all your basic needs met and a few extra bucks in your pocket, but the focus is on service, camaraderie, and maybe getting a bit outside of a comfort zone while interacting with people of different backgrounds.

Would having a large government jobs program like this work perfectly? Probably not. But, it’s something that could really benefit the greater country and bring us closer together working toward common goals.

As for the arguments of being against the American way by “forcing” service, I see that point. But, on the flip side, I think that very American ethos is taken for granted by a lot of people. Just like kids born into wealth a couple generations down get affluenza and have no respect for the hard work it took to earn, a lot of people don’t understand the work it took to get America to this point and what it takes to keep it here. 

Concur it would not be perfect but something would be better than nothing methinks.  I'm more inclined though to say military service or no program.

Don't have a beef with those pursuits (peace corps, ccc, etc...) but part of this is indoctrination of a sorts, whose doctrine is always the question but American indoctrination in this case.  I concede in advance the unease anyone could have at that but I think something is in order.  There is something character building about suffering, struggle and then improvement leading to success and accomplishment.  I see more than a few young people in my orbit and in larger society that are not getting that necessary phase in their lives to achieve maturity. 

COVID, the rise of Wokeism, the general denigration of meritocratic ideals and physically competitive pursuits, etc... are all playing a part in this loss of forging those ready to work, fight and lead.  I see a mass surge of military service as a potential antidote.

How it could be done and not totally disrupt or backfire into resentment of the people we want to win their hearts and minds back to America is the question...

Edited February 15, 2021 by Clark Griswold

[Prozac]

All for it. Make Americans from all walks of life come together and learn how to work with and exchange ideas with one another. This is how you learn that your fellow Americans are not your enemy and one of the reasons I believe military veterans make more effective lawmakers. I personally wouldn’t care if that service is military or something like peace corps, forest service, etc. Just as long as no one gets coddled and everyone gets the same treatment. That leads to maybe the biggest issue: there couldn’t be ANY loopholes. Everybody gets to do a couple years of service. No exceptions for senators’ kids. No buy outs for rich kids. No special rules based on whatever personal pronouns you prefer. It would have to be absolutely equal treatment for everybody. Maybe offer some special incentives for those willing to do a longer stint along the lines of the GI Bill. We have got to find a way to bring this country closer together and achieve some buy in to what should continue to be the society that is the envy of the rest of the world. 

[Stoker]

There's 3 or 4 million Americans turning 18 every year. Any plan for a modern draft is going to end with innumerable stories of draftees spending months or years wasted doing absolutely nothing (which to be fair, sounds like the military). If there were actual productive projects for all of these new adults, we'd be paying them to do it already.

[pawnman]

44 minutes ago, Stoker said:

There's 3 or 4 million Americans turning 18 every year. Any plan for a modern draft is going to end with innumerable stories of draftees spending months or years wasted doing absolutely nothing (which to be fair, sounds like the military). If there were actual productive projects for all of these new adults, we'd be paying them to do it already.

Maybe we can revisit the CCC and work on some of that crumbling infrastructure we hear so much about.

We're already spending trillions on Covid bailouts.  May as well get something for those tax dollars.

[jazzdude]

All for it. Make Americans from all walks of life come together and learn how to work with and exchange ideas with one another.

In theory, this is one of the benefits of a college education; exposure to new ideas and to people from a larger circle of people than your immediate community. Same could be said for athletic programs.

Just as long as no one gets coddled and everyone gets the same treatment. That leads to maybe the biggest issue: there couldn’t be ANY loopholes. Everybody gets to do a couple years of service. No exceptions for senators’ kids. No buy outs for rich kids. No special rules based on whatever personal pronouns you prefer. It would have to be absolutely equal treatment for everybody.

You're always going to have loopholes, no matter how hard you try.

Here's a challenge with having different service opportunities: there a limited number of spots for each, which creates competition, and the wealthy or well connected will try to get the "better" duty.

Should someone have to do government service right after high school if they are headed college? What if they are on an ROTC contract? Or going to a service academy? Or studying a critical skill (like nuclear engineering)? What's about other community service, like firefighters or police?

What about life circumstances? Single parent with a kid at 18? Or a couple with a kid? Deferments for pregnancy? Medical issues? (Sure, maybe you could find a desk job for them based on the health issues, but it probably isn't going to be infantry, creating an incentive to find a way out of the suck).

What about if they had wanted to enlist in the guard/reserves? Or would they have to fulfill their AD stint first before transferring over to the guard/reserve (i.e. No more off the street hires)?

Plus, what would the military do with a large influx of minimally trained people? Not just with finding things for them to do, but just the issue of managing and housing those people. What it would turn into is basic training being conducted in way more places closer to the conscripts' home, with their duty station close to home to minimize PCS costs. We'd definitely need to open up several more bases (billions of dollars easily) as well.

We have got to find a way to bring this country closer together and achieve some buy in to what should continue to be the society that is the envy of the rest of the world. 

100% agree right here. I'm just not convinced mandatory national service is the best way to achieve this. Maybe better schooling, but that always gets looked at as being indoctrination or propaganda, which I guess is technically correct. But it's our indoctrination for the American way of life, so it makes it okay :)

Then again, it's a difficult task to unify 330m people for a common cause, especially when individualism is so prized in our country and way of life. That individualism is a double edged sword- it helps make us as a nation great and a leader in innovation, but makes that bond to each other to tie the nation together weaker. Pretty much the only thing that does unify is a significant external threat.

[Breckey]

Maybe we can revisit the CCC and work on some of that crumbling infrastructure we hear so much about.
We're already spending trillions on Covid bailouts.  May as well get something for those tax dollars.

The issue is that there isn't a lot of infrastructure labor that isn't skilled in some sort of way. We don't need paths cleared through the mountains, we need major civil engineering work.

[FLEA]

I became really fascinated with the national identity Koreans came to possess through their mandatory service. Not only did they have the common expereince, they took a lot of pride in completing it, even though its incredibly unpopular, and shunned those who didn't. It then transcended generations when older father's and grandfather's would connect with their male children on service. 

For the Koreans though, probably the most significant effect was on the national mindset in regards to nK. As a war planner on staff, I didn't know at first that Korea has an ENORMOUS civil action plan in response to war. Every citizen, including those not still enlisted, has a war time job, and they all know what it is. It involves everything from evacuating people from Seoul, moving logistics, maintaining civil order, it's phenomenal. If you go to war with South Korea, you are literally going to war with the WHOLE country. 

[jazzdude]

I became really fascinated with the national identity Koreans came to possess through their mandatory service. Not only did they have the common expereince, they took a lot of pride in completing it, even though its incredibly unpopular, and shunned those who didn't. It then transcended generations when older father's and grandfather's would connect with their male children on service. 
For the Koreans though, probably the most significant effect was on the national mindset in regards to nK. As a war planner on staff, I didn't know at first that Korea has an ENORMOUS civil action plan in response to war. Every citizen, including those not still enlisted, has a war time job, and they all know what it is. It involves everything from evacuating people from Seoul, moving logistics, maintaining civil order, it's phenomenal. If you go to war with South Korea, you are literally going to war with the WHOLE country. 

I think you've got it backwards. The identity and mindset existed first, which led to accepting military service as necessary for their survival, and not military service inspiring identity.

I don't think mandatory service drives their identity. They've had to fight for their country and culture to survive for a long while, and have faced attacks and occupations (mainly from Japan, but also the communists) that galvanized who they saw themselves to be.

They also have a real threat on their border that drives a sense of responsibility to their country, which I believe makes them accepting of national military service. Plus many of them remember what Japan did too the last century as well.

There is also the drive to reunify families turn apart by the north/south split, but that's facing fast as the generation old enough to have ties across the border are dying off.

So the factors that make national military service tolerable in Korea don't seem to apply to the US.

[ClearedHot]

1 hour ago, jazzdude said:

So the factors that make national military service tolerable in Korea don't seem to apply to the US.

As a nation state's risk of survival decreases the tolerance of the draft increases...look at Israel...all in.

 

14 hours ago, Stoker said:

There's 3 or 4 million Americans turning 18 every year. Any plan for a modern draft is going to end with innumerable stories of draftees spending months or years wasted doing absolutely nothing (which to be fair, sounds like the military). If there were actual productive projects for all of these new adults, we'd be paying them to do it already.

As compared with other nations that don't have enough able bodied men to conscript. 

When I was in War College we did a 25 year look into the future based on internal shaping factors and how that would impact the superpowers.  Russia in particular has some serious challenges ahead mainly because their population is in serious decline.  Russia relies heavily on conscription, drafting approximately 700,000 eighteen year old men per year.  Due to smoking, alcoholism (very high rate in Russia), the use of birth control and an overall societal choice to delay or avoid having children, by 2012 Russia was no longer producing 700,000 eighteen year olds per year.  Additionally, conscripts in Russia are notoriously treated poorly and there is a very high service avoidance rate.  

With over a 1.4 billion people, China is another story all together, but watch India, over the next 50 years their population will surpass that of China although they have never had a draft.

[jazzdude]

As a nation state's risk of survival decreases the tolerance of the draft increases...look at Israel...all in.

Completely agree with you here, though it seems like the other assumption is that survival is looked at in military terms-the need to directly fight to hold your borders and avoid being killed. Though Switzerland, Sweden, and Norway seem to be exceptions to my theory, so it's probably incomplete.

The challenge is getting the average American to buy into us being at risk for survival (at least enough to support conscription), especially when the threats and fighting seem so far away and conscription goes directly against the notion of individual freedom. If it was implemented, sure, long term it could be a shared american experience, but that transition will be very rough, for both the conscripts and for the military.

[Clark Griswold]

13 hours ago, jazzdude said:

In theory, this is one of the benefits of a college education; exposure to new ideas and to people from a larger circle of people than your immediate community. Same could be said for athletic programs.

You're always going to have loopholes, no matter how hard you try.

Here's a challenge with having different service opportunities: there a limited number of spots for each, which creates competition, and the wealthy or well connected will try to get the "better" duty.

Should someone have to do government service right after high school if they are headed college? What if they are on an ROTC contract? Or going to a service academy? Or studying a critical skill (like nuclear engineering)? What's about other community service, like firefighters or police?

What about life circumstances? Single parent with a kid at 18? Or a couple with a kid? Deferments for pregnancy? Medical issues? (Sure, maybe you could find a desk job for them based on the health issues, but it probably isn't going to be infantry, creating an incentive to find a way out of the suck).

What about if they had wanted to enlist in the guard/reserves? Or would they have to fulfill their AD stint first before transferring over to the guard/reserve (i.e. No more off the street hires)?

Plus, what would the military do with a large influx of minimally trained people? Not just with finding things for them to do, but just the issue of managing and housing those people. What it would turn into is basic training being conducted in way more places closer to the conscripts' home, with their duty station close to home to minimize PCS costs. We'd definitely need to open up several more bases (billions of dollars easily) as well.

No doubt on loopholes and deferments/alternatives would be required.

Refining this idea, maybe a draft is part of the solution and really it is a choice of national service programs to provide multiple benefits to the American people, particularly the young.

The Draft/Conscription could be a short military enlistment (18 months) with an overseas tour (Korea, Alaska, Eastern Europe, etc...) or completion of Basic with mandatory Drills following then release from service, thinking 2 months in the summer to allow students to muster and then return to school.  I would open this option to 16 year olds to allow service to begin earlier.  At least 4 drills, no more than 6. 

The 18 month program would come with a bonus to encourage selection but both programs would earn full GI Bill benefits and Veteran status.  This is gonna cost and require further reform at the VA but so be it.

As most young people don't qualify for military service, the military options in my little musings could be selective as I would want them to be the most desired form of national service in this new program.

Young people mostly unqualified for military service and careers (usatoday.com)

Others could be AmeriCorps, CCC, Peace Corps, etc... 2 years of service in these programs would equate to 2 years of college/technical school paid with federal hiring preference in lieu of veteran hiring preference. 

As to the logistical bill of this large influx (primarily to the Army I imagine), I would want to steer that to our heart land and cities that could use a boost in population.  Goal would be to put 300k thru military training/service each year.

Money, imagination and political will; @congressman make it happen.