McCain, Military Opposes Expanding GI Bill

McCain refuses to endorse new G.I Bill
Presidential Hopeful Believes Legislation Would Hurt Military

Z. Byron Wolf
April 14, 2008

Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee seemed to give a thumbs down to bipartisan legislation that would greatly expand educational benefits for members of the military returning from Iraq and Afghanistan under the GI Bill.

In this hand out photo released by U.S.army, U.S. Sen. John McCain, center, R-Arizona talks to U.S....
In this hand out photo released by U.S.army, U.S. Sen. John McCain, center, R-Arizona talks to U.S. army soldiers, in Baghdad, Iraq, Saturday, March 25, 2006. A top level American politician group led by U.S. senators and governors led by Sen. John McCain, a Republican from Arizona who supported the invasion of Iraq, to journey to Baghdad to pressure Iraqi leaders to speed the process of forming a government.
(Spc. Orlando/ U.S.Army/AP Photo)McCain indicated he would offer some sort of alternative to the legislation to address concerns that expanding the GI Bill could lead more members of the military to get out of the service.

Both Democratic presidential candidates have signed on as cosponsors and the bill has gained bipartisan support from 55 Senators on Capitol Hill. A vote on the proposal is expected before the summer.

But the bill, which would drastically increase educational compensation for American troops, has run into some unexpected resistance, both at the Pentagon and now from McCain, who has remained silent on the issue, saying he had not studied the bill close enough.

But pressure had been mounting on McCain to support the bill. A veterans group delivered a petition to McCain's Senate Office signed by 30,000 veterans supporting the bill.

Officials in charge of personnel at the Pentagon worry that a more generous and expansive GI Bill, creating as it would, an incentive for troops to get out of the military and go to college, would lead troops to get out of the military and go to college.

And while that might be great for the individual troop, it could be bad for the military, which is already under stress after more than five years fighting two wars.


On his campaign plane this afternoon, McCain said he and allies in the Senate are working on would offer some sort of alternative to bill, but would support only something that also included incentives to stay in the military.

"We are working on proposals of our own – I'm a consistent supporter of educational benefits for the men and women of in the military," McCain said. "I want to make sure that we have incentives for people to remain in the military as well as for people to join the military. I'm very proud of my support over many years of support for vets and all the vets organizations, having received the highest award for literally every veterans organization in the U.S. we will continue to look at the needs where educational, health care and other benefits, not just education, but health care, I've talked a lot about veterans health care, so we'll continue to talk about those issues and how to care for vets. I know I can do that, having been one."

That is unlikely to sit well with Virginia Democrat Jim Webb, like McCain a Vietnam vet, who has made the GI Bill legislation his personal crusade. It was the first legislation Webb introduced after arriving on Capitol Hill after the 2006 elections.

He must be constantly reminded of the GI Bill, too. When Webb arrives at his office in the Russell Senate Offfice Building, he's almost within sight of Georgetown Law School, where he got his law degree in the 1970s.

Back then he was a decorated war veteran just back from Vietnam and in exchange for his service the US taxpayer gave him a full ride – tuition, housing and living expenses were all covered under the GI Bill.

The schooling led to Webb's career as Navy Secretary, novelist and now Senator.

It's a different story for Matt Flavin, a first-year Georgetown law student today. He might go on to great things, but he'll have a bigger tab to pay when he does it. The GI Bill paid for all of Webb's law school, but for Flavin, who got out of the military in August and enrolled at Georgetown, the check that arrives every month at the run-down group house he lives in is for a little over $1,100 – about 6 percent of what it costs in tuition, books and living expenses at the private school. The benefit is smaller for members of the National Guard and Reserve.


It is a big disparity and one of the first things Webb pledged to do when he was elected to the Senate in 2006 was push for a GI Bill more in line with the one that put him through law school.

Since arriving on Capitol Hill, Webb has drummed up support from 55 Senators, including Republicans like John Warner of Virginia, Ted Stevens of Alaska and Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, all GI Bill beneficiaries. Another cosponsor is Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Connecticut, who usually sides with McCain where it comes to the war and the military.

Webb is not suggesting that the government pay for everyone in the military to go to private college, he would more than double the GI Bill benefit for veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, offering a living stipend of up to $1,000 depending on where the veteran lives and pay the equivalent in tuition of the most expensive state school in the veteran's home state. It would also give the benefits to members of the National Guard and Reserve, who while they are often deployed overseas, do not enjoy the same benefits as regular troops. The annual cost would be, according to Webb, somewhere in the neighborhood of $2 billion.

Flavin joined the military out of patriotism shortly after 9/11, went to Officer Candidate School and over the next five years served tours in Bosnia, Afghanistan and with Naval Special forces in Iraq.

While he did not join the military specifically to get benefits from the GI Bill and does not think most troops do, Flavin supports the legislation.

"We owe them something," Flavin said of his comrades. "They've given life, limb, everything there is to give. The people who bore the most pain and suffering are the people who could use these benefits."

At Georgetown, where tuition alone is $39,390 per year for a full-time student, the GI Bill makes a dent, but not a very big one. Figures compiled by Webb's office say the GI Bill covers about 11 percent of the more than $55,000 it cots to attend Georgetown Law School, buy books and live.

But Webb's bill, while it might help someone like Flavin afford law school, argued defense department officials in testimony before the House Veterans Affairs Committee last year, could be bad for the military as a whole.


"The Department is concerned that a benefit of this amount would have long-term negative impacts on force management. It would be an enlistment incentive, to be sure; but it would be a larger reenlistment disincentive," wrote Thomas Bush and Curtis Gilroy in joint testimony last October before the House Veterans Affairs committee. Bush was then Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Reserve Affairs and Gilroy is the Director for Accession Policy for the Pentagon's Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness.

They suggest, and President Bush did too in his State of the Union address this year, not expanding the GI Bill benefit for current soldiers, but making it easier for them to transfer the current benefits to family members.

The original GI Bill provided a college education to more than 8 million veterans between World War II and 1980. After World War II, the military was drawing down and there was a wave of troops headed home from theaters on both sides of the world.

As the military was scaling down in those years, moving from a force that relied on the draft and conscription to fight large wars to an all-volunteer force, it made sense to change some of the benefits too. According to Curtis and Gilroy, the GI Bill was pared down in the 1980s to something more fitting for a volunteer force.

Short of a draft, the military will have to continue to work to entice recruits and then convince them to stay in the military.


ABC News' Bret Hovell contributed to this report

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This is more of his supporting the troops? How can a Presidential candidate deny veterans of one the toughest wars in American history, a war of choice the same chances that veterans of WW2, Korea and Vietnam the same opportunities that those veterans had at a chance to get an education that can change their lives and their families for the better. These Gulf War veterans have spent far more time in combat and repeated deployments than any other veterans have had to endure. Shame on you Senator McCain, why don't you support the troops, because it might cost to much?

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