Cato Daily Dispatch for November 11, 2003
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Pentagon: No Plans to Resume DraftStates Easing Prison Sentences to Save Money
CBO Predicts Whopping Deficits for Years to Come
Pentagon: No Plans to Resume Draft
"A routine notice advertising the need for people to serve on the nation's draft boards has prompted a flurry of press reports suggesting the Pentagon may restart the military draft. Officials denied any such thing is afoot," The Associated Press reports.
"The United States hasn't had a draft since 1973, when it was abolished during the latter months of the Vietnam War. Registration was reinstated in 1980, in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and the law still requires that males who are U.S. citizens or resident aliens register within 30 days of their 18th birthdays."
Doug Bandow, Cato senior fellow and author of "Draft Registration: It's Time to Repeal Carter Final Legacy," says, "Defending the United States means defending a free society built on individual liberty. Renewing conscription would destroy the very thing we are supposed to be protecting."
In "Draft Would Cast a Chill Over the Military," Bandow writes: "A free society doesn't mean there are no shirkers, content to benefit from the sacrifices of others. But that is the price of freedom. Allowing a Washington elite to decide how everyone else should spend his or her life is a dubious form of 'fairness.'"
States Easing Prison Sentences to Save Money
"After two decades of passing ever tougher sentencing laws and prompting a prison building boom, state legislatures facing budget crises are beginning to rethink their costly approaches to crime," The New York Times reports.
"In the past year, about 25 states have passed laws eliminating some of the lengthy mandatory minimum sentences so popular in the 1980's and 1990's, restoring early release for parole and offering treatment instead of incarceration for some drug offenders. In the process, politicians across the political spectrum say they are discovering a new motto. Instead of being tough on crime, it is more effective to be smart on crime."
In "Misguided Guidelines: A Critique of Federal Sentencing," Erik Luna, an associate professor of law at the University of Utah, says Federal Sentencing Guidelines undermine constitutional principles and produce unjust results. "Because 'tough on crime' platforms tend to have electoral appeal, legislators often play to voters' short-term emotions rather than considering sound public policy, producing criminal justice initiatives with few real benefits to society but large financial and human costs," he writes.
"Ultimately," he concludes, "Congress must end the Guidelines era and begin anew, guaranteeing that the next 15 years of federal punishment will not be like the last. It is time to scrap the [U.S. Sentencing Commission] and its Guidelines, and to embark on a new age of moral judgment in sentencing."
CBO Predicts Whopping Deficits for Years to Come
"A Congressional Budget Office analysis requested by a group of fiscally conservative Democrats forecasts budget deficits in the $400 billion range for the next decade, almost double the projections of the White House," according to CQ Today.
In the August 2003 edition of Tax & Budget Bulletin, Cato Fiscal Policy Analyst Veronique de Rugy and researcher Tad DeHaven write: "Higher spending and the resulting deficits create a looming threat of higher taxes, and even threaten President Bush's tax-cutting legacy because liberals will use the deficit as an excuse to demand that recent tax cuts be allowed to expire.
"It is true that Congress shares the blame with the administration for excessive budget growth in recent years. However, Bush has not vetoed a single spending bill during his tenure in office. Instead, he has signed every bill crossing his desk including huge education and farm subsidy bills."
Wyatt Dubois, editor, wdubois@cato.org
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