Bill to Pay Veterans’ College Costs Set for Vote
By JONATHAN E KAPLAN
The Senate will consider legislation this week that would finance a college education for several thousand Maine military veterans who began their tours of duty after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Every year, an estimated 1,000 post-Sept. 11 veterans return to Maine, said Peter Ogden, director of the Maine Bureau of Veterans Services. The figure is based on the number of letters he writes to returning veterans each year.
If the new legislation is signed into law, all active-duty, National Guard and Reserve veterans who have served at least three years since Sept. 11 could receive full tuition to an in-state public university, as well as $1,000 annually for books and a monthly housing stipend. The new benefits would cost $52 billion over 10 years.
Currently, veterans can get $1,100 a month, up to a maximum of $9,909 a year, to pay the costs of a college education. There is no book or housing stipend.
Under the new legislation, veterans would have up to 15 years from their date of leaving the service to take advantage of the law. The current deadline is 10 years.
Maine’s congressional delegation supports the legislation, which was introduced by Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va.
"Congress should provide sooner rather than later an education benefit package that reflects the brave and honorable contributions of the total force, both active and reserve," Sen. Olympia Snowe, R- Maine, said in a prepared statement.
Republican Sen. Susan Collins has co-sponsored Webb’s bill as well as a competing version of the bill that increases current benefits rather than offering new ones.
Reps. Tom Allen and Michael Michaud, both Democrats, voted in favor of a spending bill that included the new education benefits for veterans.
"College costs are soaring and existing education benefits for veterans are not keeping pace," Allen said in a prepared statement. "The benefits in this bill will enable our returning veterans to make the transition back into the civilian work force and seize the opportunities they fought to protect."
Facing pressure from conservative Democrats to find money to pay for the new benefit, party leaders in the House added a 0.47 percent tax surcharge on single taxpayers earning more than $500,000 and couples making more than $1 million. The surtax would apply to part of the tax owed and raise $54 billion over 10 years, Democrats estimated.
Although the legislation sailed through the House, it has become entangled in politics in the Senate.
Webb, a former Navy secretary and a Vietnam veteran, introduced his proposed changes when he arrived in the Senate last year. Veterans groups have supported his bill, and he has picked up the support of 57 senators from both parties.
Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, and the Pentagon have argued that Webb’s bill is too costly and would harm the military’s retention efforts.
McCain’s proposal, which Collins also supports, would raise the existing benefit to $1,500 a month. It also would increase benefits for service members who joined before Sept. 11, 2001, with those who completed at least 12 years of service eligible for $2,000 a month. McCain’s plan also would allow veterans to transfer benefits to family members. President Bush proposed a similar idea in his State of the Union address.
Last week, Republicans forced a vote on McCain’s proposal as an amendment to a larger bill giving police officers and firefighters the right to unionize. Snowe and Collins voted against the amendment, which the Senate defeated 55-42.
"While the bills are different, they both would significantly increase veterans’ education benefits over current levels," Collins said in a prepared statement. But she opposed the amendment because legislation giving collective bargaining rights to police and firefighters "was not the right vehicle" to use to pass McCain’s bill.
The vote led Democrats and Republicans to accuse each other of playing politics with the tuition legislation.
"Senator McCain is looking for political cover in a very difficult situation to hijack a bill to help our police and firefighters," said Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill.
Sen. Lindsay Graham, R-S.C., told reporters that they forced a vote on the bill because Senate Democratic leaders would not allow a vote on McCain’s bill as an amendment to the emergency war spending bill that the Senate will consider this week.
The Senate Appropriations Committee approved a $194 billion spending bill last Thursday to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the new benefits included in Webb’s bill.
The full Senate is expected to consider the legislation this week. Senate Democrats do not plan to include tax increases or spending cuts to cover the bill’s costs, including the new education benefits for veterans.
"The Webb GI legislation could appropriately be considered for emergency funding given the extraordinary demands that we have placed on our brave men and women," Snowe said in her statement, and she prefers that Congress find a way to pay for the bill.
Washington D.C Correspondent Jonathan E. Kaplan can be contacted at (202) 488-1119 or at:
jkaplan@pressherald.com
Originally published by By JONATHAN E. KAPLAN Washington D.C. Correspondent.
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