Senate Joins House in Passing New Post-9/11 GI Bill

Twenty-five Republican senators broke rank with President Bush to help Democrats approve overwhelmingly a new, more generous GI Bill plan negotiated by Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.) for active duty servicemembers, reservists and veterans who have served since the attacks of 9-11.

Senate leadership virtually ignored an alternative backed by the Bush administration and sweetened a day earlier by prominent Republicans who support the war in Iraq. Their bill, S. 2938, would have enhanced the current Montgomery GI Bill education benefit sharply in the hope of winning the support of more veterans groups and blocking Webb's package.

The surprise 75-22 vote for the Webb plan included more than half of all Senate Republicans plus 48 Democrats and two independents. President Bush has promised to veto the bill but an override looks possible in both the Senate and House, which passed the Webb bill in mid-May.

Sens. Lindsey Graham (S.C.), John McCain (Ariz.) and Richard Burr (N.C.), agreed with Defense officials that the Webb plan would entice too many service members to leave after completing their initial service obligations, driving drown force retention rates in wartime.

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But most veterans groups stood by the Webb plan because it would pay full tuition and fees at the most expensive state schools, provide a new monthly stipend tied to local housing costs, and would give Reserve and Guard members who have served lengthy deployments since 9-11 access to the same GI Bill benefits. The chairmen of the armed services and the veterans' affairs committees, Sens. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii), co-sponsored the Warner amendment.

The Graham alternative sought to enhance existing Montgomery GI Bill benefits rather than establish a new GI Bill for post-9/11 veterans. Graham's key feature was to give the services authority to allow transfer of up to 18 months of unused education benefits to spouses or children if members serve at least six years. Both monthly payments and the transferability feature would be enhanced for continued service beyond 12 years.

To solidify support for their bill, called the Post-9/11 Veterans Educational Assistance Act, Webb and co-sponsor Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), announced May 20 that they would back a new amendment from Sen. John Warner (R-Va.) to allow testing of a transferability option for their new-era GI Bill.

The next day, Graham and Burr unveiled more ambitious changes to their own bill. Graham suddenly wanted to drop the $1200 MGIB enrollment fee and to adjust benefits each year based on rising education costs rather than inflation overall. Also, a $500 annual stipend for books would be raised to $1000.

These changes boosted the cost of Graham's bill to $38 billion over 10 years, up $4 billion from his earlier plan. He and Burr proposed paying for their bill by cutting all federal discretionary spending, except for defense programs, by up to .5 percent a year. The House had voted to pay for the Webb bill by raising taxes by .47 percent on income above $500,000 a year for individuals and above $1 million for couples. Graham said the flaw of this plan is that it will hammer small business owners.

Hagel, in an interview, said the trouble with Graham's MGIB reform package is that education benefits would be used as a retention tool. Instead, they should be regarded as promised benefits to a new generation of warriors, he said.

"This is an argument about doing what the American people have committed to do" in every past war: "provide an earned [education] benefit for those men and women who serve their country," Hagel said.

Hagel said he was "stunned" by data Webb introduced during floor debate showing that the Army loses 75 percent of soldiers during or immediately after they complete their first enlistment. Seventy percent of Marine recruits too are gone after a first tour. That suggests to Hagel and Webb that critics are exaggerating the importance of retention while they would allow most veterans to leave without proper education benefits.

Today's volunteers, Hagel said, deserve "what I got coming back from Vietnam, what Warner got coming back from World War II and what [Rep.] Charlie Rangel [D-N.Y.] got coming back from Korea."

Graham's plan to pay for his MGIB revisions by cutting non-defense spending by .5 percent across the board is "a charade," Hagel said. "That's not going to happen; everybody knows it."

Graham and colleagues, Hagel said, should accept the fact that an improved GI Bill is another cost of war.

"I don't see Lindsey Graham or John McCain or Richard Burr or the president of the United States going to the Congress and asking for offsets for the $3 billion a week we spend in Iraq," Hagel said. "If it's critical that we produce money to fund the war, with no regard for how we're going to pay for it," it's should be critical to provide a decent GI Bill "to the poor guy at the bottom who always has to take the hill."

At a press conference announcing changes to his bill, Graham dismissed the notion that, as Republican and Democratic plans move closer to embracing the same features, the fight had shifted to who got credit for GI Bill reform this election year by having their name on a new law.

"Well, you know, I'll call this the Webb GI Bill," Graham said of his revised legislation. "I appreciate what he's done by putting the idea on the table of modernizing benefits." But Webb's bill, he said, remains "a $52 billion package that incentivizes people to leave the military at a time when we need to put money on the table to keep them around."

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