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Cato Daily Dispatch for July 22, 2003

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U.S. Marines Land in Liberia
Sen. Feinstein Supports D.C. School Vouchers
House Committee Rejects AmeriCorps Funding Increase

U.S. Marines Land in Liberia

"A security team of U.S. Marines helicoptered into Liberia on Monday, and 4,500 sailors and Marines aboard ships moved closer to the West African nation amid heavy fighting between rebels and government forces," reports USA Today.

In "Liberia Folly: No Role for U.S. Troops," Ted Galen Carpenter, Cato's vice president for defense and foreign policy studies, writes: "During the 2000 campaign, George W. Bush emphasized that a vital national interest ought to be at stake before the United States launches a military intervention. Unfortunately, the president is about to violate his own standard by sending American troops to Liberia at the head of an international peacekeeping force.

"There is not even a peripheral, much less a vital, U.S. interest at stake in Liberia. It might be possible to find a country that is less relevant than Liberia to America's security and well-being, but it would take a major effort."

In a statement earlier this month, Carpenter said: "Military intervention is not justified merely because suffering is occurring in the Liberian civil war. There is suffering taking place in numerous countries around the world. Indeed, the scale of human misery is greater in such places as the Congo, Cuba and North Korea. If the United States intends to intervene everywhere bad things happen, our military will be busy in perpetuity.

"It is unsound strategically to send our military personnel in harm's way when there is no vital security interest at stake. Even worse, it is immoral to risk their lives in such ventures."

Sen. Feinstein Supports D.C. School Vouchers

"Mayor Anthony Williams has proposed a five-year pilot program that would offer low-income parents a choice in where they send their children to school in the District. This proposal has the support of the president of the school board and thousands of District parents," writes Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) in today's Washington Post.

"But because of the unique relationship between the District and the federal government, members of Congress also have a say in whether such a pilot program will be funded and implemented. As a former mayor and a current member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, I am inclined to support Williams' effort to experiment with this program. I believe that education is a local issue and that if the mayor wants this program, it should be given the chance to work."

In "The Need for Educational Freedom in the Nation's Capital," Cato Education Policy Analyst Casey J. Lartigue Jr. argues in favor of school vouchers in the District. He writes: "Rather than trying to reform the system, future efforts should be directed at ending the monopoly that public schools currently have over education by giving parents the freedom to choose between private and public schools. A program of tax credits or vouchers of a sufficient amount to allow parents to choose a private school if they so desire would transform parents from hostages into customers. Placing parents on an equal par with customers of other services would deprive DCPS (District of Columbia Public Schools) of its monopoly position and would allow existing and new private schools to help students whose present options are limited to poorly performing schools."

House Committee Rejects AmeriCorps Funding Increase

"The House Appropriations Committee refused yesterday to provide AmeriCorps with an extra $100 million the agency says it needs to keep its volunteer corps intact, but the financially troubled agency may eventually get much or all of the money anyway," reports The Washington Post.

"By a near party-line 34 to 24 vote the Republican-led committee rejected an amendment by Rep. David E. Price (D-N.C.) that would have provided the added funds. Price was trying to add the money to a measure providing an extra $2 billion this year for coping with natural disasters, dousing wildfires and other programs."

In "AmeriCorps Not Necessary, Even Harmful," Cato Senior Fellow Doug Bandow writes: "Service in America is so vital because it is decentralized and privately organized, addresses perceived needs, and grows out of people's sense of duty and compassion. Any federal service program must be judged by whether it is consistent with this vision of volunteer service.

"The explicit goal of advocates of mandatory service programs is to create a duty to the state rather than to the supposed beneficiaries of service. Moreover, service is to fit into a larger social plan implemented and enforced by government."

He goes on to say: "It is, in the abstract, hard to criticize grants to organizations like Habitat for Humanity (which until now refused to accept government funding), Big Brothers/Big Sisters, and the Red Cross. These groups do good work and money given to them is likely to be well spent. Who, however, should do the giving? Should the IRS empty pockets nationwide, give part of that to a government entity, which gives it to charity? No. Individuals should give to charity directly, not through the IRS. And it is understandable that the Habitat for Humanity could use more full-time supervisors for its volunteers, but not that the Habitat should get them from the government."

Wyatt Dubois, editor, wdubois@cato.org