[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 16 (Wednesday, January 29, 2003)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E91-E92]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




        INTRODUCING LEGISLATION TO REPEAL SELECTIVE SERVICE ACT

                                 ______
                                 

                             HON. RON PAUL

                                of texas

                    in the house of representatives

                      Wednesday, January 29, 2003

  Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, I am today introducing legislation to repeal 
the Selective Service Act and related parts of the United States Code. 
The Department of Defense, in response to recent calls to reinstate the 
draft, has confirmed that conscription serves no military need. This is 
only the most recent confirmation that the draft, and thus the 
Selective Service system, serves no military purpose. In 1999, then-
Secretary of the Army Louis Caldera, in a speech before the National 
Press Club, admitted that ``Today, with our smaller, post-cold-war 
Armed Forces, our stronger volunteer tradition and our need for longer 
terms of service to get a good return on the high, up-front training 
costs, it would be even harder to fashion a fair draft.''
  Obviously, if there is no military need for the draft, then there is 
no need for Selective Service registration. Furthermore, Mr. Speaker, 
Selective Service registration is an outdated and outmoded system, 
which has been made obsolete by technological advances.
  In fact, in 1993, the Department of Defense issued a report stating 
that registration could be stopped ``with no effect on military 
mobilization and no measurable effect on the time it would take to 
mobilize, and no measurable effect on military recruitment.'' Yet the 
American taxpayer has been forced to spend over $500 million dollars on 
an outdated system ``with no measurable effect on military 
mobilization!''

[[Page E92]]

  Shutting down Selective Service will give taxpayers a break without 
adversely affecting military efforts. Shutting down Selective Service 
will also end a program that violates the very principals of individual 
liberty our nation was founded upon. The moral case against the draft 
was eloquently expressed by former President Ronald Regan in the 
publication Human Events in 1979: ``. . . it [conscription] rests on 
the assumption that your kids belong to the state. If we buy that 
assumption then it is for the state--not for parents, the community, 
the religious institutions or teachers--to decide who shall have what 
values and who shall do what work, when, where and how in our society. 
That assumption isn't a new one. The Nazis thought it was a great 
idea.''
  I hope all my colleagues join me in working to shut down this un-
American relic of a bygone era and help realize the financial savings 
and the gains to individual liberties that can be achieved by ending 
Selective Service registration.

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