One gets the distinct impression that Bush and McCain, both of whom announced their unyielding opposition to a bipartisan expansion of the GI Bill, are a little touchy on the subject. Given how wrong they are, I guess this isn’t especially surprising.
Yesterday, the New York Times published a hard-hitting editorial questioning the White House’s line on the GI Bill. It made the accurate argument that the president and his allies don’t want to hear.
President Bush opposes a new G.I. Bill of Rights. He worries that if the traditional path to college for service members since World War II is improved and expanded for the post-9/11 generation, too many people will take it.
He is wrong, but at least he is consistent. Having saddled the military with a botched, unwinnable war, having squandered soldiers’ lives and failed them in so many ways, the commander in chief now resists giving the troops a chance at better futures out of uniform. He does this on the ground that the bill is too generous and may discourage re-enlistment, further weakening the military he has done so much to break.
So lavish with other people’s sacrifices, so reckless in pouring the national treasure into the sandy pit of Iraq, Mr. Bush remains as cheap as ever when it comes to helping people at home. […]
Mr. Bush — and, to his great discredit, Senator John McCain — have argued against a better G.I. Bill, for the worst reasons. They would prefer that college benefits for service members remain just mediocre enough that people in uniform are more likely to stay put.
In response, a livid White House blasted the NYT, calling the editorial “misleading,” and insisting that it “irresponsibly distorts” the president’s position. Oddly enough, the Bush gang didn’t point to any specific falsehoods in the Times piece, and instead relied on the already-debunked “retention” argument. (Times editorial page editor Andy Rosenthal said it was “puzzling” why the White House attacked the editorial. “We said Bush opposes the Webb bill,” Rosenthal said. “He opposes the Webb bill. I don’t understand what’s misleading about it.”)
McCain seems just as sensitive on the subject.
Yesterday, he sounded pretty defensive.
McCain said his was the right position rather than the politically expedient one, suggesting Obama was on the wrong side of the measure sponsored by Democratic Sen. Jim Webb. […]
“I am running for the office of commander in chief. That is the highest privilege in this country, and it imposes the greatest responsibilities. And this is why I am committed to our bill, despite the support Senator Webb’s bill has received,” McCain, a Navy veteran and Vietnam prisoner of war, said at the New Mexico Veterans Memorial Monday. “It would be easier, much easier politically for me to have joined Senator Webb in offering his legislation.”
However, McCain said he opposed Webb’s measure because it would give the same benefit to everyone regardless of how many times he or she has enlisted. He said he feared that would depress reenlistments by those wanting to attend college after only a few years in uniform.
Why McCain continues to repeat this line is a mystery. He’s fallen in this ditch and he’s decided to keep on digging.
As the NYT editorial noted:
[Bush and McCain] have seized on a prediction by the Congressional Budget Office that new, better benefits would decrease re-enlistments by 16 percent, which sounds ominous if you are trying — as Mr. Bush and Mr. McCain are — to defend a never-ending war at a time when extended tours of duty have sapped morale and strained recruiting to the breaking point.
Their reasoning is flawed since the C.B.O. has also predicted that the bill would offset the re-enlistment decline by increasing new recruits — by 16 percent. The chance of a real shot at a college education turns out to be as strong a lure as ever. This is good news for our punishingly overburdened volunteer army, which needs all the smart, ambitious strivers it can get.
Ironically, last month, during a nationally televised interview, McCain was asked what could be done to help alleviate the strain placed on U.S. troops during the war. McCain responded by saying the government should do more to boost recruiting: “[O]ne of the things we ought to do is provide them significant educational benefits in return for serving.”
And yet, here’s McCain, continuing to argue that we can’t possibly make the educational benefits for veterans too generous.
As digby put it, “Right. We should be generous, but let’s not go crazy. Those bastards who think they deserve to have the government pay for their college after just a few years in uniform simply don’t deserve it. Sure, they may put themselves in the line of fire in Iraq or Afghanistan for a couple of tours and maybe they work for peanuts and their families are on food stamps while they do it. But that’s no reason for them to cheat the taxpayers by taking a college scholarship when they are needed indefinitely in the war zones. They’re nothing but a bunch ‘o big babies.”