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Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Congress: Money for War, But No Money for the Troops?

When it comes to hypocritical "Support the Troops" rhetoric, I thought I'd seen it all. But I was wrong. This week, a small group of Democrats are using back door dealings to torpedo the widely-supported new GI Bill. For anyone new to the issue, here's the bottom line up front:
In 1944, FDR signed the original GI Bill, which gave every veteran a chance to go to college. It paid for tuition, fees, and books, and gave veterans a living stipend. The GI Bill helped the "Greatest Generation" readjust to civilian life, it helped pull us out of a post-war recession, and it helped build the middle class. Every dollar spent on educational benefits under the original GI Bill added at least seven dollars to the national economy.
Today, 1.7 million troops have come home from Iraq and Afghanistan, but the GI Bill no longer covers anything like the cost of college. So a bipartisan coalition of veterans now serving in the Senate introduced a new GI Bill, modeled on the World War II legislation. This bill recently got added to the war funding bill currently in Congress.
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Our government has been paying for basically the entire war "off-budget"--the equivalent of racking up billions in credit card debt. Everyone thinks this is a bad way of doing business. But it's not the whole supplemental that these Congressmen are threatening to vote against; it's just the GI Bill. For those of you playing along at home, here's what that looks like:

LinkHere

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