John McCain and a host of other Republicans have refused to support the Jim Webb G.I. bill (s.22) that would grant members of the military, once they left the armed forces, the same benefits that were received by those who served during and after World War II. While Webb will try to add the bill to the Iraq-Afghanistan supplemental appropriations bill, the Republicans tried a sneak attack by trying to get a weak version of the bill added to an unrelated bill about collective bargaining. The differences between Webb's bill and the weaker GOP bill as introduced by McCain's Senate lapdog, Lindsey Graham? Webb's bill allows full educational benefits after 36 months of service, while in the watered-down Graham bill it takes 12 years of service to get them. Webb's bill ties the value of the benefit to actual public institution tuition, while the Graham bill's benefit is maxed at $2000 and then indexed to inflation rather than actual educational costs. So the Democrats got 6 Republicans to join them to defeat the "save political face while pretending to offer a real alternative" amendment.
So what do veterans think? Well the Air Force Times has two veterans' groups supporting the Webb bill.
The GI Bill is a cost of war as much as any other expenditure,” said Paul Rieckhoff, executive director of Iraq and Afghanistan War Veterans, founded in 2004. “Any member of Congress who votes for a $170 billion war bill and then votes against the GI Bill is nickel-and-diming our troops. Veterans of all generations will be outraged by that decision.”
Marty Conatser, national commander of the American Legion, said that when the Legion fought in 1944 for the original World War II GI Bill, “even some veterans’ groups complained that it would break the treasury.”
“Instead, the GI Bill transformed the economy and has been widely hailed as the greatest domestic legislation Congress has ever passed,” said Conatser, whose organization has 2.7 million members.
Stars and Stripes points out just how much "heftier" the Webb bill is for veterans:
Retired Army Col. Bob Norton, an education benefits expert with the Military Officers Association of America, said Graham’s bill does have some terrific features. But Norton said only the Webb bill delivers on both goals set for GI Bill reform by The Military Coalition, a consortium of service associations and veterans groups. First, it would raise benefits enough to cover at least the average cost of a public college education and has an effective mechanism to keep them there.
Second, it would allow Reserve and Guard members to earn the same GI Bill entitlement as active duty troops, depending on length of active duty service. The Graham/Burr/McCain bill has no such provision, Norton said.
So the military press tells us that the veterans need the benefits and see that the Webb bill is much preferable to the Republican alternative, yet McCain, Ted Stevens and most other Republicans are worried that the Webb bill is so generous that it will hurt "troop retention" and encourage them to leave.