Old Draft

AN OLD IDEA is getting popular again: drafting 18-year-olds. Franklin A. Thomas, president of the Ford Foundation, thinks it's a very good idea and said so in a widely discussed speech last week. Other liberal congressmen have also embraced the concept and asked the government to seriously look into the possibility of a draft--not specifically for the military but primarily for a large youth public service force.

Mandatory National Service, as Thomas and most proponents envision it, would force each citizen at the age of 18 to enlist with the government for a year of work. Each person would have the choice of serving with the armed forces or being assigned to some kind of non-profit or public works organization at the minimum wage or lower. The program would cost an estimated $35 billion.

The government would not necessarily create jobs, but would pay teenagers to help non-profit organizations or to repair and build public facilities, in groups modelled after the New Deal's Civilian Conservation Corps. Some proponents have suggested that the money would come out of cuts in the military, a tradeoff the forces might be willing to make in return for more and higher qualified 18-year-olds.

Three basic arguments have been put forth for national service. Proponents argue that it would ameliorate the disastrous youth unemployment problem, improve the quality and equality of the armed forces by bringing a broader range of teenagers from more affluent and better educated backgrounds into the services, and extract some sort of in-kind payment for accruing the advantages of U.S. citizenship.

Of these three reasons, though, only the first is urgent enough to justify the expense of instituting such a program now. There is no question that the U.S. has to do something about youth unemployment, which now hovers around 30 percent. Making jobs available--even if only for one year--will give teenagers a sense of responsibility and purpose. Mandating them will force the teenagers to take advantage of what could be an opportunity.

But a national service plan is not a jobs bill. While the money would create temporary jobs, much of it will go to students who, after their college education, are not likely to find themselves unemployed. Funding a moral obligation may not be a prudent investment for the government with so many other bills to pay, even if it creates jobs on the side. And while it should be a goal to diversify the armed forces, using this as an argument makes national service seem like a backdoor draft.

Instead of using the money to make pre-college students as well as unemployed youths put in some time for Uncle Sam, the government should elevate it exclusively to remedying youth unemployment. Getting disadvantaged youths working for a year is a more urgent priority than funding a year in Appalachia for same future doctor or lawyer. Though philosophically sound, the national service idea should not be allowed to abscure a basic economic need.