Republicans strike back with own GI Bill plan

[Vulture6]

Republicans strike back with own GI Bill plan

By Rick Maze - Staff writer
Posted : Wednesday Apr 23, 2008 11:44:53 EDT

A Republican GI Bill plan with many features attractive to active-duty service members and their families was unveiled Tuesday, in an effort to show that it’s not just Democrats who want to improve veterans’ education benefits.

The plan includes increases in basic benefits, a new book allowance, broad rights to transfer unused benefits to family members, and the ability to use veterans’ benefits to pay off existing student loans.

It also would extend GI Bill benefits to service academy and Reserve Officers’ Training Corps scholarship graduates, who are currently ineligible for payments, and would allow about 5,000 people who entered active duty between 1977 and 1985 to sign up for the benefits plan from which they were excluded.

The package is intended as an alternative to a GI Bill plan introduced last year by Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., that has the support of most House and Senate members.

It also helps Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., Republican presidential candidate and ranking minority party member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, who has faced increasing pressure from veterans’ groups for not supporting Webb’s bill, S 22.

For active-duty members, monthly GI Bill benefits would rise Oct. 1 to $1,500, up from the current $1,101, enough to cover the average cost of a four-year public college including room, board, tuition and fees, said Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services personnel subcommittee.

Another $500 annual payment would help cover the cost of books and supplies.

Asked if he thought a living stipend was needed in addition to the basic benefit, Graham said room and board is factored into the cost. “We don’t have beer money included,” he said.

That is less than what Webb proposes in his bill, which would provide GI Bill benefits plus a living stipend in amounts varying by state.

Webb proposed basic benefits that matched college tuition and fees, up to a maximum payment set by the most expensive four-year public college in a state. The monthly living expense proposed by Webb would match the military’s basic allowance for housing for an E-5 with dependents in the area of the school being attended, estimated to be $1,000 a month or more.

Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina, ranking Republican on the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee and another co-sponsors of the new bill, said Webb’s plan could take a year or more to implement because of the difficulty in setting a benefits cap for each state, and would create inequities between states.

Burr said increases called for by the Republican bill would take effect this year, and veterans would get the same payment no matter where they went to school.

Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., is the fourth co-sponsor of the bill, which Republicans are calling the Enhancement of Recruitment, Retention and Readjustment Through Education Act.

Webb’s bill is the Post-9/11 Veterans’ Educational Assistance Act.

Patrick Campbell of Iraq and Afghanistan War Veterans said the provisions noted by Burr are not necessarily advantages.

Basing payments on average tuitions, Campbell said, “means, by definition, that half of the people are not going to be paid enough to cover the cost of their college education. That is why I still prefer Webb’s bill.”

The Pentagon has opposed Webb’s bill, arguing that it would encourage people to get out of the military to use the benefits. Defense officials do not want GI Bill benefits to be more than about $1,500 per month.

In response to military concerns, the Republican bill promises to phase in additional increases for those who have served 12 or more years on active duty. Monthly benefits would increase by $150 in 2009, $150 in 2010 and $200 in 2011, capping at $2,000.

Benefits for reservists also would increase to $1,200 a month for people who have been mobilized since Sept. 11, 2001, a jump from the current $880. Benefits for other Guard and reserve members would increase to $634 a month, double the current rate.

Recognizing that veterans’ benefits are insufficient to pay for every school, the bill includes a provision encouraging colleges and universities to forgive loans accumulated by veterans. Schools can receive $1,000 for forgiving 25 percent of a veterans’ debt, $2,000 for forgiving 50 percent of debt and $3,000 for forgiving 100 percent of debt, Graham said.

The proposal allowing transfer of GI Bill benefits to family members would be a retention boost for active, Guard and reserve forces, Graham said.

It would allow those who have served six years to transfer 18 months of GI Bill benefits to a spouse or child, and allow 36 months of GI Bill benefits to be shared after 12 years of service.

While the bill is more generous than the plan envisioned by the Pentagon earlier this year, when President Bush endorsed the idea of sharing veterans’ educational benefits with family members, Graham said he did not expect administration opposition.

Asked about the Pentagon view, Graham said he had spoken with defense officials who “agreed” to the proposal but quickly amended that to say, “Well, I think they are going to agree.”

The bill does meet the basic limitations on payments spelled out last week by defense officials in testimony before the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee.

The Republican bill has three features not included in Webb’s proposal:

* Service academy graduates and Senior ROTC graduates who are excluded from the current GI Bill plan, unless they earned benefits through prior enlisted service, would get full benefits, including transfer rights, if they serve in uniform for five years beyond their initial obligation.

Graham said this would encourage officers to stay in the military through 12 years. At that point, the ability to transfer benefits to children could make it less likely officers would leave the military so they could earn more money to pay for their children’s college education.

* About 5,000 active-duty members who entered service between 1977 and 1985, when the only education benefits plan available was the low-paying Veterans Education Assistance Program, or VEAP, would be allowed to enroll in the GI Bill.

They would have to pay a $2,700 contribution, more than the $1,200 payment for other service members. They would also be limited to using the benefits only to pay for a bachelor’s degree and would not have the option of transferring benefits to family members.

The enrollment option would be available to anyone still on active duty or to those who were on active duty on Sept. 11, 2001, who have since retired.

* GI Bill benefits could be used by enrolled active-duty members to pay off federal student loans, which is not currently allowed. State or private loans would not be covered.

Up to $6,000 per year could be repaid. The payments would reduce a member’s total GI bill benefits, under rules to be determined, to ensure no one is paid more than other GI Bill users. Republican aides said this feature would be another way to encourage people to remain on active duty.

Webb spokeswoman Kimberly Hunter said the Republican bill seems to focus “on educational benefits for career military officers while ignoring the 75 percent of service members that choose not to pursue a career in the military.”

Hunter said S 22 “is an affirmative readjustment benefit designed to transition post-9/11 veterans into civilian life, which is the same benefit given to the ‘greatest generation’ of World War II.”

“Sen. Webb has consistently said that the military does a fine job at managing its career force, but really fails to take care of their people once they leave the military,” she said.

The Republican bill “follows that same philosophy,” she added. “As veterans’ unemployment continues to rise and recruitment continues to fall, we need affirmative programs that reward active-duty service, transition veterans into civilian life and target new pools of potential recruits.”

Graham and Burr, who discussed their proposal at a Capitol Hill news conference, said they do not yet have a cost estimate for their bill, but they noted that neither does Webb.

Webb has been working on a plan to attach his bill to a larger wartime supplemental funding bill when the Senate takes up that measure in a few weeks, intending to argue that any required funding should be considered a wartime cost.