Posted on 06/23/2017 5:45:27 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Federal officials say nearly one out of six young men in Washington state are committing a felony, and they might not even know it.
Their crime? Not registering for a nonexistent military draft.
Despite the United States not having pressed anyone into military service since 1973, virtually all men ages 18 to 25 still are required to register with the Selective Service System. The agency keeps men’s information on file in case the country needs to mobilize a military force during a time of crisis.
Not registering can cause men big problems down the road, officials say. For one, it is a felony punishable by a fine of up to $250,000 and up to five years in prison — though no one has been prosecuted for that offense in more than 30 years.
More practically, men who don’t register for the draft become ineligible for many federal jobs, as well as federal grants and loans for college. Immigrants who don’t register can also lose their opportunity to become U.S. citizens later on.
Washington state’s compliance rate with Selective Service requirements is especially low, federal officials say. Fewer than 84 percent of 18- to 25-year old men in Washington registered in 2016, according to numbers from the Selective Service. Across all U.S. states and territories, the national compliance rate is almost 92 percent.
That puts Washington in the bottom quartile of states when it comes to compliance.
Those numbers are a big concern for the Selective Service’s new director, Don Benton, who is from Washington state. Benton, a former Republican state senator from Vancouver, was appointed to lead the agency in April. He previously served several weeks as President Donald Trump’s adviser to the Environmental Protection Agency, after chairing Trump’s presidential campaign in Washington state last year.
Benton, who was visiting his home state on an outreach trip this week, wants to see to the registration rate in Washington climb as close to 100 percent as possible. He said he’s working to ensure members of under-served communities — such as immigrants and those living in poverty — understand they are required to register and the consequences of not doing so.
“What we’ve found is in states that have either a lot of rural poverty, or high-population density centers where there are pockets of poverty … those tend to not do as well,” Benton said in an interview Tuesday.
Areas with large populations of immigrants also have lower rates of compliance, he said.
Benton said registering is important because it helps “demonstrate that the entire nation stands behind our all-volunteer military in a state of readiness, in case there’s some national emergency.”
“I think the likelihood of a draft is very slim,” Benton said. “But as I always tell my Boy Scouts — I’m a Boy Scout leader, as you know, as I have been for many years — I tell them it’s always good to be prepared. That’s the Boy Scout motto.”
Some Washington state officials also worry about the state’s low compliance rate, but they’re not sure what to do about it, said state Rep. Larry Haler, R-Richland.
Haler, who said he sits on a local draft board in Eastern Washington, sponsored legislation in 2011 to allow teenagers to register for the draft when they get their driver’s licenses. This week, he said he wants to revisit the issue to see if there’s a way to improve upon that law.
While many states automatically submit young men’s information to the Selective Service when they apply for a driver’s license, men in Washington state are merely asked by the Department of Licensing if they want to register. That means those men can more easily decline.
“The message hasn’t gotten out to a lot of the young men, or they haven’t taken it seriously,” Haler said Monday.
“I think a lot of the young people think that because it’s an all-volunteer Army right now that the draft will never come back again,” he said. “But there could be that possibility.”
Others may consciously choose not to register, according to a 2016 report from the Congressional Research Service, which provides nonpartisan analysis to Congress.
Groups such as The Center on Conscience and War want to eliminate draft-registration requirements, saying the mandates target “conscientious objectors who believe that registering with Selective Service is a form of participating in war.”
Some members of Congress have similarly proposed abolishing the Selective Service, or at least getting rid of the penalties for failing to sign up. Proponents of doing so “argue that ineligibility for federal benefits is most harmful to those with fewer financial resources, who also might be least aware of their obligation to register,” the report from the Congressional Research Service states.
Asked whether men should continue being punished for failing to register for a draft that doesn’t exist, Benton said, “That’s a great question for Congress.”
“I don’t make the laws or the penalties,” he said. “As the director of the agency, I implement the rules and regulations that I am instructed to implement by the president or the United States Congress.
He added: “I would speculate that members of Congress and members of the community at large believe it is an important civic duty to register.”
I’m from a poor area and me and my buddies all signed up when we hit 18.
Obviously anyone who was really intending to make a forgery wouldn’t leave such an obvious discrepancy as to leave out the “19” or to have the date difference with the signature. Those stamps have rubber inserts and can be purchased by anyone. So these these random faults seem more like evidence of validity.
Space aliens might drop down from the sky and provide a tough enemy here.
Good luck on convincing the American people to fight a Chinese horde again over there.
Truman, Johnson, and Bush were run out of Washington on a rail over getting the country involved in a ground war in Asia.
Eisenhower, Nixon and Obama won by promising to end one.
How much money would we save by not requiring registration ?
Is that image part of a analysis document/page? — because it seems like it could be an interesting read.
If you really feel that being a citizen of this country is such a 'shit sandwich' I suggest you renounce your citizenship and leave. Easy to do, and you will not be missed.
U.S. Constitution - Article 1 Section 8 Article 1 - The Legislative Branch Section 8 - Powers of CongressThe Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
To borrow money on the credit of the United States;
To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;
To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;
To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;
To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States;
To establish Post Offices and Post Roads;
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;
To constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court;
To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offenses against the Law of Nations;
To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;
To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;
To provide and maintain a Navy;
To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;
To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;
To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;
To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings; And
To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.
What major ground war you looking for, one with Canada, or Mexico?
About 30 seconds worth of the budget. It’s one of the tiniest programs out there. The draft board members are all volunteers who aren’t paid anything. Think of it as a supplemental insurance policy.
https://www.sss.gov/About/Quick-Facts-and-Figures
There are unpaid volunteers but most of the staff is compensated.
Point is there is a federal bureaucracy with vast powers that will never be called upon again for conscription.
As a former Selective Service board member I suppose I’m more familiar than most with the agency. Yes, of course the staff are compensated, as are almost all federal civil servants. My point is is that there aren’t very many of them. It’s a tiny little agency in the big scheme of things. There are probably more paid staff at my veteran’s clinic than in the entire SSS.
It's a tiny agency with enormous power. At any time, some director could get ornery and decide to do prosecutions.
Ok, so most kids registered for the draft at 18. How many of them kept up with providing address changes to these bureaucrats up to age 26?
Ooops that's a felony...
No, it's a registration of draft-eligible citizens. Would a return to press gangs be preferable?
At least the press gang got you drunk before forcing you into years of service away from home.
Ooops that's a felony...
It's also a redundancy, given that your SSN is part of the registration info in the database. They know where you most likely can be found.
So you’re telling me that your idiotic posting name has nothing to do with bush and 911? The Bush clan is been nothing but a disappointment to America. They are nothing but traitors.
I doubt I’m the only one to tell you this.
It's a small Cold War relic that will never be used again for it's intended purpose with enormous power to prosecute.
Until Obama, weaponizing the IRS was a conspiracy theory.
President Kamala Harris puts her cronies into the Selective Service System and has them pulling who and who has not been updating their data for possible felony prosecutions?
Get rid of the damn thing.
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