February 17, 2011 08:45 PM UTC

Coffman: End the Draft, Cut Defense Budget

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• by: Colorado Pols

We’ve always believed in giving credit where credit is due, and we think there will be bipartisan praise for this budget amendment from GOP Rep. Mike Coffman—Air Force Times reports:

After 31 years of symbolism, the time has come to end draft registration in the U.S., says Rep. Mike Coffman, R-Colo., a retired Marine Corps officer and a veteran of the 1991 Gulf War.

“It is an outdated program that has cost us well over $700 million in the last 31 years, and it is time for it to go,” Coffman said in a statement…

Coffman, who enlisted in the Army in 1972 and went on to serve in the Army Reserve, Marine Corps and Marine Corps Reserve, said he knows that today’s volunteer military is more effective than a force of draftees.

“Every year since the draft ended in 1973, the Army has improved the quality of its personnel, training, and professionalism,” Coffman said in a statement. “I saw firsthand how ineffective the draft Army of the early 1970s was compared to the highly professional, all-volunteer military of today.”

Ending draft registration and shutting down the Selective Service System would save about $24 million a year “without negatively affecting our national security in the least,” Coffman said.

In addition, Coffman is seeking a range of other significant cuts to the Department of Defense, for example voting to kill a duplicative fighter engine program widely considered unnecessary. In today’s Denver newspaper, reporter Allison Sherry writes about the brewing fight between Coffman and some of his fellow Republicans–at the forefront of which is another Colorado congressman, Doug Lamborn, who represents the biggest military installations in the state, and who sponsored an amendment to undo many of his fellow Republicans’ proposed defense cuts.

Bottom line: we know a lot of our readers do not count themselves among Rep. Coffman’s fans, but in bravely challenging a most hypocritical soft spot in conservative budget-cutting rhetoric, he’s actually doing his fellow Republicans a great service; showing credibility ahead of the budget battle with the President. Here’s one Republican willing to put his own sacred cow on the barby.

The question is whether his colleagues will prove to be like him, or like Doug Lamborn.