The new GI Bill: just for war veterans?

Virginia Sen. Jim Webb's new GI Bill, which President Bush may sign into law next week, promises to give more than 1.6 million military veterans the opportunity for a free college education.

In promoting his bill, Webb said the existing GI bill, which pays for about half the cost of a college education, was designed for peacetime. Veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, he argued, deserve the same education benefits given to veterans of World War II.

The original GI Bill, signed by President Franklin Roosevelt, sent nearly 8 million World War II veterans to college free of charge and, some say, helped create the post-war middle class.

But will Webb's new GI bill be limited to war veterans?

What happens when the Iraq and Afghanistan wars end?

``When this war is over, one would assume this benefit is going to end," Webb said Thursday in celebrating the Senate's passage of his measure.

That would seem an unlikely bet, however.

Nothing in Webb's legislation calls for the program to end when the wars end. Curtailing the benefits would require new legislation. And there would be little political glory for future lawmakers to push a bill cutting veterans' benefits.

The poweful veterans' lobby would seem sure to beat back any attempt to weaken the GI bill it just fought to pass.

``This is a promise we make to anyone who signs up, peacetime or wartime," said Patrick Campbell, legislative director of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, which claims 100,000 veterans and supporters.

All of which explains why government entitlement programs, once created, usually never die.

In Webb's case, that means that all future military veterans who serve at least three years of active duty will likely get a free college education at a state university if they want one. No combat duty required.

Comments

[DevilDog]

Enlisted in 1979, and never knew about VEAP until five years after I got off of active duty. Had to pay for my own education - no grants, no scholarships - just an empty promise to take care of veterans. I guess those of us who served Post-Vietnam, are in deed the forgotten warriors.

Semper Fi!

[J. Tyler Ballance]

The Congress has already cut back on GI benefits several times in the past, so your premise that a benefit once created will not be taken away or reduced is proved false by a brief review of the past sixty years.

The most egregious reduction occurred just after the Vietnam debacle. Congress was so ashamed of our military, they eliminated the Vietnam era GI Bill and replaced it with a pay-in program called VEAP. VEAP was a lousy program that required soldiers and sailors, who were making lower wages than the typical janitor, to pay into a program that would match their payment, then provide a slow trickle of payments once the Veteran enrolled in a college. The problem with VEAP was two-fold: 1. The soldier couldn't afford to pay in, in most cases. 2. The pay-out was so meager, the Veteran could not afford to attend college using the program.

Congress has never fixed the VEAP program. Millions of our soldiers, sailors and airmen, who served at a time when our military was the least popular (post-Vietnam) never received a decent education benefit.

What we have lacked is a uniform GI Bill that applies to all who serve, regardless of the era. These veterans did not join, knowing in advance which wars they would be called to fight, so they should not have a roller-coaster system of benefits that results in service members who joined at different times having mismatched benefits packages. We serve as one team and our benefits package must apply equally to all who have served.