MAYOR PETE'S 'NATIONAL SERVICE' PLAN WAS A NATIONALIST FANTASY.

AuthorWelch, Matt

PETE BUTTIGIEG, THE former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, who briefly looked like a serious contender for the Democratic presidential nomination before dropping out on March 1, loves imagining his war-veteran self on a debate stage with the Vietnam-dodging Donald Trump. He is also fond of asserting that "few--if any--single policy solutions carry the promise of democratic renewal more than national service."

What Buttigieg and other fans of the perennially elusive goal of national service fail to grasp is that the real-world anecdote always undermines the campaign-season fantasy. Using the blunt force of government to forge national unity will forever disappoint as long as individuals have the ability to wiggle out of conformity.

Nodding to the political realities of the day, Mayor Pete stresses that his plan is "strictly optional." But it's worth remembering that no U.S. resident can legally opt out of paying the taxes that feed the federal beast.

The 2009 Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act (if you wince at that title, note that the House version was called the Generations Invigorating Volunteerism and Education, or GIVE, Act) expanded the upper limit on Bill Clinton's AmeriCorps from 75,000 annual volunteers to 250,000, ostensibly paid for by jacking up the annual appropriation to just over $1 billion. Yet Buttigieg notes that current funding levels translate into acceptance for only 13 percent of AmeriCorps applicants and 25 percent of Peace Corps aspirants.

The mayor doesn't put a price tag on his "Service for All (who want it)" plan, nor does he acknowledge that--like the military, whose acceptance levels are only 20 percent, despite U.S. foreign policy's inexhaustible appetite for young bodies--many people who "want" to join fail to meet the minimum qualifications. Still, his idea seems undoable at less than $5 billion a year.

Which, to be sure, is only as much as Washington spends each morning. But when not dreaming out loud about priceless plans like this one, Buttigieg was one of the few candidates who actively campaigned on reducing the government's unconscionable trillion-dollar deficits.

And don't kid yourself--Buttigieg would love for national service to be a hell of a lot more expensive than $5 billion a year. Asked by MSNBC's Rachel Maddow in April 2019 why he chose to enlist in his mid-20s after Harvard and Oxford, the candidate waxed eloquently about seeking to bridge the country's vast class and racial divides, a gap...

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