Rangel's draft plan gets a chilly reception

This issue of bringing back the military draft will keep coming up for discussion over and over again in the future no matter what the circumstances are. If the U.S. ever completely eliminated all taxes at some point in the future, then some of the future politicians would probably be talking about possibly bringing back the existence of taxes for a variety of reasons. There are many issues that will be with us forever no matter what does and what doesn't happen in U.S. and in world affairs.

Excellent point. Sideshow Charlie.

Rangel has been talking about a draft for years and years. I think he misses it. I'm sure it is all politically motivated, designed to make the military seem alien and horrible to common folks. The only difference about his past rantings and now is that people are suddenly listening to him because he will be a committee chairman. This has nothing to do with the present military situation and all to do with the weird mind of Charley Rangel.

With that many people working for the Government, I would think the path to Empire would be quite quick. All that manpower and bureaucracy has to go somewhere and I doubt it will be sweeping your streets.

He let slip his true reasoning on the radio the other day. He keeps harping that the military doesn't represent the social classes properly and that the current and past Military personnel majority come from poor families with little economic opportunities. He let slip that he joined because of the lack of opportunities for himself at the time of his enlistment. So he views all Military personnel join for the same reason. The man is delusional.

Why don't we just state the obvious: while most Republican pols are hardly geniuses, most Dems pols are either dopes like Rangel, crooks like Murtha, Reid, or Jefferson, or stupid and criminal pieces of worthless flesh like Kennedy who was only elected because of his surname. I'm sure the Clintons shake their heads every time one of their fellow Jackass Party associates dream up stupid ideas like Rangel...which appears to be a daily thing.

My lib daughter-in-law had made plans with her hubby to split for Canada when Bush reinstituted the draft as he was certainly going to do after winning the last election. (smirk) My wife and I tried to tell her that wasn't going to happen. Oh no, she knew better. Bush was GOING!!! to institute the draft, and there was no doubt about it. She's been pretty quiet lately about the draft business.

"Rangle...totally insane?"

More stupid than insane. But at least he's probably only middle of the pack stupid as far as Dems go. As least they can't pin a crime on him...so far.

All of this is soooo ironic. My NY friends with teenagers have been paranoid that Bush will reinstate the draft despite my best efforts to tell them he would never do such a thing.

Now one of their own has come back and bit them on the ankle! The awful, abrasive-voiced Charlie Rangel!

Let us examine the scenario that will occur. The army says it needs 100,000. They draft 120,000. Right off the bat, you have educational deferrments...which wipe out 25,000. Then you come to the group who say they won't accept orders by the current administration or by the military...so that 40,000 are given peace corps jobs or national foresty service jobs...which both groups admit that the most they want is 3,000 each...so congress has to authorize some kind of deal to entice them to take the 20,000 each.

Then you have the 10,000 who are extremely overweight...and can't pass the physical. You also must count in 2,000 who can't read or write to such a degree to be in the military. So we've counted out 77,000 guys out of the 120,000 to start with. Then toss in the drug-use guys...who might number 10,000 and the 8,000 who open proclaim themselves gay (maybe they are....maybe they aren't)....these 18,000 have to have some kind of duty...so they shuffle them off to inner-city projects which go nowhere.

So the military who wanted 100,000 draftees...get 25,000. The entire action...to classify them...to test them...to find them jobs with foresty officals or innercity projects...will cost over $300 million per year. And the amusing thing...you still have another 75,000 draftees you have to find somewhere...maybe in Mexico or Honduras...but we gotta draft these boys from somewhere. Its a joke from step one...and you can't laugh because your tax dollars pay for it. And Rangel? His smart office help....who convinced him to do this...are the idiots who triggered this entire event. The whole program ends four years later when a GAO project determines the hidden cost for each year is almost $600 million...for the guys who never made it to the US military.