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November 20, 2006
Charlie Rangel: Bring Back the Draft?
FOX News Special Report With Brit Hume 
MAJOR GARRETT, FOX NEWS CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): House Democratic leaders wanted no part of colleague Charles Rangel's push to reinstate the draft.
REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA), HOUSE SPEAKER-DESIGNATE: We have made very clear what our priorities are (INAUDIBLE). Mr. Hoyer will be the leading the action on the floor.
REP. STENY HOYER (D-MD), HOUSE MAJORITY LEADER: The speaker and I have discussed scheduling. It did not include that.
GARRETT: On Fox's "YOUR WORLD" with Neil Cavuto, Rangel said America needs a draft to spread military sacrifice.
REP. CHARLES RANGEL (D-NY), HOUSE WAYS AND MEANS CMTE: Why is a kid who is going to Harvard or Yale or have alternatives not included in the sacrifice for our country? Why will you recruit people who have less options?
GARRETT: Rangel, a decorated Korean War veteran and top lawyer to the draft board during the Vietnam War, said a draft would discourage lawmakers from reckless wars.
RANGEL: Every time someone says more troops, or the military option is on the table in Iran, and the military option is on the table in North Korea, they're saying that somebody's kids are going to be placed in harm's way, but not mine.
GARRETT: At least nine current members of Congress have sons who have served or are serving in Iraq or Afghanistan, among them out-going House Armed Services Committee Chairman Duncan Hunter.
HUNTER: My son had a high tech job and a wife and baby and he left those to serve his country after 9/11. I think that's the patriotic ethic of this country.
GARRETT: Hunter also said the military is meeting its current recruitment goals.
HUNTERS: While you have people who are volunteering to take spots in the U.S. military, it doesn't make sense to be drafting people who would be displacing those persons.
GARRETT: In the Senate incoming Armed Services Committee chairman Carl Levin of Michigan met with Defense Secretary nominee Robert Gates and waived off the draft idea.
SEN. CARL LEVIN (D-MI), ARMED SERVICE COMTE: I don't think we need it. I don't favor it.
GARRETT: Illinois Senator Barack Obama also said America doesn't need a draft.
SEN. BARACK OBAMA (D), ILLINOIS: I would not support a proposal for the draft at this point. I think we had a wonderful volunteer army in place.
GARRETT: Rangel first proposed reinstating the draft in 2003. Republicans brought it to the House floor in the heat of the 2004 presidential campaign, in part to quell rumors the Bush White House would push the draft if it won reelection. The House defeated the measure 402-2. Anti-war Democrat John Murtha of Pennsylvania voted for the draft, as did Pete Stark of California. Rangel did not.
RANGEL: Of course not, because I wasn't voting for or against the bill. I was voting against the process. Even now I don't want my bill to come up on a yes or no. I want to have a hearing.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GARRETT: Now what about the charge that an all volunteer force is poorer, less educated, and more minority? Well a Heritage Foundation study last year, analyzing census data on income, race, region and education, found there that military recruits before and after 9/11 were more middle class than poor, more rural than urban, better educated than the general public, and that whites joined in higher proportions to the general population than all minority groups.
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