Once in a while, it’s hard to keep a good bill down — especially when it involves expanded benefits for the troops, during a war, in an election year.
The Senate has overwhelmingly passed a new GI bill and billions in new domestic spending as part of the $165 billion Iraq war funding bill pending before Congress.
The 75-22 vote marked a resounding victory for Senate Democrats as well as Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.), who has battled to expand the educational benefits for soldiers who served in Iraq. The vote was the first critical hurdle in a three vote package on the Iraq war funding bill. The measure also included a 13 week extension of unemployment insurance, home heating assistance and other domestic spending add ons. President Bush has threatened to veto the bill, which will top $200 billion with the extra spending. […]
What was most surprising was not that the domestic funding amendment and the GI bill won a majority of the Senate votes, but that half of the Senate’s 49 Republicans bucked President Bush and GOP presidential candidate John McCain to back the dramatically expanded GI bill. Many uncertain Republicans stood in the well of the Senate, taking their time to make a decision. Virtually every GOP senator who is politically vulnerable this year voted for the domestic spending, including Sens. John Sununu of New Hampshire and Roger Wicker of Mississippi.
It’s interesting how vulnerable Republicans suddenly start to notice the merit of Democratic legislation six months before Election Day, isn’t it?
In all 25 Senate Republicans broke ranks with Bush/McCain to support the measure, giving the bill a veto-proof majority. Even Lieberman voted for it. Both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama spoke in favor of the bill and voted for it. McCain, who has repeatedly said he opposes the measure, decided to raise money in California and skipped the vote. All 22 “nay” votes were conservative Republicans.
As it turned out, the debate included some pretty interesting arguments.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), one of the 22 who opposed the legislation, insisted that senators would be rewarded for rejecting a bipartisan effort to modernize the GI Bill.
Graham also insisted that his Republican colleagues would “get rewarded in the next election” if they vote against GI benefits:
“This is a defining moment for the Senate, for the Republicans, and this war. I can tell you if we leave the generals alone and support our troops, they will win this war. And to my Republican colleagues, if we’ll stand firm for a fair procedure and a sensible solution to the veterans’ problems, we will get rewarded in the next election, not punished. If we give into this, we don’t deserve to be here.”
I haven’t the foggiest idea what Graham is talking about. This bill is popular.
The GI Bill was instrumental in helping send a generation of U.S. veterans to college and helping create the nation’s post-WWII middle class, but the law has not kept up with the times. Whereas veterans used to be able to count on the government to pay for all of their college expenses, troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan are finding that the GI Bill barely scratches the surface of today’s college costs.
Sens. Jim Webb (D-Va.) and Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) unveiled a GI Bill modernization bill over a year ago to help correct the problem. From a patriotic perspective, it shows real support for the troops. From a military perspective, it’s likely to make recruiting easier if young people know they’ll be able to afford college after their service. From an economic perspective, the country benefits when thousands of educated young people enter the workforce with degrees.
Every veterans’ group in the country supported the bill, but Bush and McCain said expanding benefits would undermine retention — an argument that has already been debunked.
According to Webb, if Bush vetoes the bill, as he has vowed to do, he’ll be the first president to ever veto benefits for U.S. troops. Stay tuned.