You Can Change History With a Two Minute Telephone Call

I am going to ask you to do something in the next forty-eight hours that can change history. Before you say no and assert that this is just another piece of propaganda, read to the end. That is all I am asking. And then decide.

Tentatively scheduled for next Thursday, July 9, the Senate Foreign Operations Subcommittee will be marking up the Foreign Operations Appropriations Bill. A tiny part of that $49 billion bill is money for the Peace Corps. If the subcommittee votes a robust $450 million for the agency, there will be money for reform and for growth and for sending hundreds of volunteers out to new countries like Indonesia, Sierra Leone and Vietnam. If the subcommittee votes only for the $373 million in the administration budget bill, there will be no growth, no reform and the Peace Corps will slowly die.

Some of you reading this will be former volunteers, and you will react with emotion and sympathy. A few may have just applied to the Peace Corps and been told that because of the current budget there's no room and you have to wait many months. Many others will express concern for Kennedy's greatest child that in two years will reach its fiftieth anniversary. Others will be surprised to learn that the organization, half of its size in the Sixties, still even exists. And a few will be irritated at the idea of spending money outside the country on a bunch of do-gooders while the economy stinks and millions are out of work.

Let me tell you what is at stake. The world does not understand Americans. We are known for our power and our wealth. We are not known for our goodness and our generosity. The Peace Corps is America's greatest tool of understanding, and our truest ambassadors. Since 9/11 the Peace Corps has turned inward, obsessed with security and squeezing the volunteers with excessive control and frequently with disregard. A crucial moment has arrived. Either the organization is dramatically enlarged and reformed, or it will continue its slow death.

While tripling the number of domestic volunteers, President Obama has reneged on his off-expressed campaign pledge to double the number of Peace Corps volunteers by 2011 The easiest, most politically expedient thing would have been for Congress to have gone along with the administration's anemic $373 million appropriation. But in one of the most encouraging and inspiring political acts in some time, many members of Congress of both parties have embraced this idea of a bold new Peace Corps and they have supported the full $450 million appropriation. In the crucial House subcommittee, everyone including all Republicans voted in support of full funding. It was one of the most vivid examples of bipartisan politics in months in Washington.

The game has moved to the Senate, and next Tuesday, July 7 when the Senate marks up the bill, millions will be watching. This is the ball game. Chairman Patrick Leahy of Vermont is a major progressive figure in American politics, and one would expect him to lead the fight for the $450 million. Instead, he is the leading impediment. In the past decade by arrogantly ignoring his important questions, the Peace Corps bureaucracy has managed to alienate one of the most powerful Senators. Leahy rightfully asks for proof that the Peace Corps will change into the lean, powerful, responsible organization it must be if it is to play an unprecedented role in the world.

Last week Leahy's close friend Senator Chris Dodd introduced a bill to expand and reform the Peace Corps. That should answer many of Leahy's doubts. The question is whether Leahy will grasp what is at stake here and lead his colleagues in an historic vote to give this bold, new Peace Corps a chance to live. His staff rings their hands in despair saying that they would have to take the money away from AIDS relief or malaria programs. There are all kinds of places to cut without touch other worthwhile humanitarian efforts. This $49 billion bill has plenty of fat and a neat slice off the buttocks of some boondoggle would hurt no one or nothing. Leahy will serve no one if he opts for a self-styled "compromise" giving the Peace Corps a modest increase that will only increase the pain.

One of Leahy's colleagues on the committee has already spoken in what truly is a bold, new way about a bold new Peace Corps. Last night Newsmax, the conservative website, published a piece on the Peace Corps by Senator Kit Bond of Missouri. (http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/kit_bond_peace_corps/2009/06/29/230235.html). Bond is often stereotyped as a hardnosed, narrow conservative. He is a thinker and like anyone who truly thinks, he is unpredictable. An expert on Asia, he understands like few of his colleagues the crucial role for the Peace Corps. "At no other time in our nation's history have the efforts of the Peace Corps been more necessary and relevant, which is why I am one of this agency of peace's strongest supporters and have called for the increase of volunteers around the globe, particularly in the Muslim nations of Southeast Asia," the Senator wrote. "Through initiatives like the Peace Corps, we can put sneakers and sandals on the ground, instead of military boots.

We need Senator Bond's vote next Thursday but we need far more than that. We need his ideas, and we need strong conservative support and intellectual contributions to this bold, new Peace Corps. This is no longer the paternalistic Sixties, and there are all kinds of innovative ideas such as social entrepreneurship that help people help themselves. That's the kind of Peace Corps we need, a Peace Corps that Senator Bond and Senator Leahy will both celebrate.

And so it's your turn now. I don't care who you are. Returned volunteer. Applicant. Junior high school student. Grandmother. Republican. Democrat. It's your Peace Corps too. It's too late for letters. Get over to your computer and change the world. Email one or more of the fourteen Senators or call their offices and state your opinion. Implore them to have the political guts to stand up for a bold appropriation for a bold Peace Corps. And next Tuesday night, celebrate with us what we have won, all of us, our movement, America, the world---a bold new Peace Corps for a bold new world.

Democrats

Senator Patrick Leahy
[e-mail]
202-224-4242

Senator Daniel Inouye
http://inouye.senate.gov/Contact/Email-Form.cfm
202-224-3934

Senator Tom Harkin
https://harkin.senate.gov/c/index.cfm
202-224-3254

Senator Barbara Mikulski
http://mikulski.senate.gov/Contact/contact.
202-224-4654

Senator Dick Durbin
http://durbin.senate.gov/contact.cfm
202-224-2152

Senator Tim Johnson
http://johnson.senate.gov/contact/
202-224-5842

Senator Mary Landrieu
http://landrieu.senate.gov/contact/index.cfmr
202-224-5824

Senator Frank Lautenberg
http://lautenberg.senate.gov/contact/index1.cfm">
202-224-3224

Senator Arlen Specter
http://specter.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Contact.ContactForm
202-224-4254

Republicans

Senator Judd Gregg
http://gregg.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Contact.ContactForm
202-224-3324

Senator Mitch McConnell
http://mcconnell.senate.gov/contact.cfm(
202) 224-2541

Senator Bob Bennett
http://bennett.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?p=EMail(
202) 224-5444

Senator Kit Bond
http://bond.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=ContactUs.ContactForm
[phone]

Senator Sam Brownback
http://brownback.senate.gov/public/contact/contactoffices.cfm
[phone]