An Expanded Peace Corps

Since it was established in 1961 by John F Kennedy, the Peace Corps has sent 182,000 volunteers to 138 different countries to carry out its' mission. The mission of the Peace Corps is:

1) Helping the people of interested countries in meeting their need for trained men and women.
2) Helping to promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the people served.
3) Helping promote a better understanding of other people on the part of Americans.

Currently their are 7,810 Peace Corps volunteers and their FY 2007 budget is $318.8 million. In my previous post, I expressed in the comment section that I would like to see the Peace Corps expanded ... going out and spreading aid, understanding and good will among the world. I have crunched the numbers and this how it could work.

If we extrapolate the numbers out from 7,810 volunteers to 1,000,000, we would have to grow the annual budget to $40.8 billion dollars. This is a daunting amount. However, in 2006 US Government foreign aid amounted to $27.5 billion. Much of this aid can be done by the new Peace Corps rather than the Military or USAID, which currently handles this, thereby saving costs in these two agencies. We could in fact eliminate the bureaucracy of USAID, saving $12 billion a year. This brings the net increase down to $1.3 billion a year, less the $0.3 billion we are already spending ... brings the increase to a little less than $1 billion a year. The savings on the use of military aircraft and naval ships to deliver and administer aid (not the most economical way to do this) would save more than that.

We would need an initial outlay of at least $50 billion for infrastructure (Buildings, distribution centers, aircraft and cargo ships). Some of this can be off-set with the liquidation of $24 billion in USAID's infrastructural assets, as well as utilizing Military Posts that have been closed due to BRAC (Base Realignment and Closure). Utilizing the closed military posts would help breathe life into communities that have been devastated by the loss of the military in their communities. The need for aircraft and ships will help communities with ship building and aircraft assembly plants. as well as all the suppliers around the country. This will increase the tax base and bring more revenue into the government coffers. Now if this plan is implemented, and a million Peace Corp volunteers march out and start teaching and helping in the communities of the world, what will our return on investment be?

Why would someone hate the people that educated their kids and helped them to properly irrigate their fields? When some despotic little mullah starts spouting off about the Great Satan (America), won't these people believe more in what they have seen and experienced than in what this mullah says? Of course there will always be those people that hate us ... but they should be totally outnumbered by the ones that like us.

We will also get better citizens out of this. We will have a collection of people who have seen for themselves what it is like in third world countries, and now truly appreciate what they have been blessed with.

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