WASHINGTON, DC - After months of speaking out against President Clinton's efforts to give AmeriCorps more access to Selective Service resources, the full US House voted Wednesday to deny funding this year for the president's "Service to America Initiative," which many including Paul had seen as a first step in merging the two offices. The vote was part of the appropriation bill to fund the Veteran's Administration and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Before becoming law, the measure still must pass the Senate and be signed by the president.

"This is certainly a victory for our side. But we cannot be content with simply stopping this program for one year," said Paul, who has introduced the Selective Service Registration Privacy Act which would prohibit AmeriCorps from ever being able to utilize the resources or records of the Selective Service. Under federal law, every American male from ages 18 to 26 is mandated to register with Selective Service - the draft - when he reaches 18.

Paul said the danger in allowing AmeriCorps to get its foot in the door of Selective Service is that it could further open the way to American teenagers being conscripted into national service for liberal programs like trash cleanup details and other "social conscience" activities.

"The House's decision Thursday to stop the president's initiative is very encouraging," said Paul.

The Service to America Initiative would have cost taxpayers nearly $1 million and mandated that every teenager registering for Selective Service be subjected to government-financed advertisements promoting AmeriCorps.

"AmeriCorps has no constitutional basis, but if we are going to have it, we should not subject our young men to advertisements for the program while they are being forced to register for the draft," said Paul. "And we certainly do not want to find ourselves in the position of seeing our sons and grandsons being drafted into the liberal's notion of 'national service.'"