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Floor Statement: The G.I. Bill
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Mr. President, I want to congratulate the Senator from North Carolina and the Senator from South Carolina for their leadership. But I also want to congratulate Senator Webb, the Senator from Virginia. I do believe all of these Senators and those of us who joined them are operateing with the best of intentions and that is how do we modernize the G.I. Bill? The G.I. Bill that helped provide my father an education after he left the air force after World War II, how do we modernize the G.I. Bill and provide the maximum benefit that we can, but also make sure that it provides for benefits to military families by allowing for transferability to spouses and children under some circumstances. and I would think fundamentally to our national security, how do we preserve and protect the all-volunteer military force?
I know it's not his intention, but Senator Webb's bill actually would encourage people not to reenlist by providing a perverse incentive to leave early in order to obtain the benefits they would receive after three years of service. We need to make sure that we encourage continuation of service, retention in the military in the best interest of our all-volunteer military force. And, you know, to me, it's ironic, I remember the Senator from Virginia had an amendment where we would restrict the amount of time that a service member could be deployed and then provide for a minimum time that they had to be back home before they could be deployed again. And, again, I think it was a noble aseparation that he had. But unfortunately because our forces were spread too thin because we allowed the end strength of our military to degrade over time, we had to, as a matter of our national security and success in our current efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, ask these service members to return to service without an adequate dwell time.
Well, perversely, I think the Senator's bill by encouraging early exit from the military and hurting retention, according to the CBO, by some 16% decline would actually be at cross-purposes with the very proposal he advanced earlier about allowing our military more time at home, because it would reduce the number of people in our all-volunteer military and make it necessary that they be deployed more often and at greater sacrifice. So, I do believe that we ought to reward those who continue to serve. We ought to reward the families by allowing transferability of the benefit upon continued service to spouses and children. I can tell you, in speaking to group of Texans this last weekend, that one feature was something that they very much appreciated. And then we ought to do everything we can to strengthen and nurture our all-volunteer military force and not cause a 16% decline in retention rates.
We need to have a fair debate and a fair opportunity for a vote on these competing proposals, both of which I say again were borne out of the best of intentions, and that is -- were born out of the best of intentions and that is providing educational benefits for our military service members and their families. But I would have to add that calling into question Senator McCain's commitment to veterans is laughable. I mean, it would be laughable if it wasn't so pathetic. No one serving in the United States Congress, and few serving anywhere in the United States, have given more to support our military service members, both active and retired, and obviously Senator McCain himself is a war hero, and to me, that's the kind of phony ad that I think causes most people simply to dismiss them because there's just no basis for it.
And I would agree with the Senator from Arizona that this procedure whereby we're asked to vote on what started out to be an emergency funding bill to support our troops in harm's way in Afghanistan and Iraq has now been larded up with a bunch of pet projects and other spending which have nothing to do with supporting our troops in harm's way. And actually, Congress, by engaging in this sort of conduct, is actually slowing down delivery of the money to the troops who need it. And we've been told by the secretary of defense and the secretary of the veterans administration that, particularly the secretary of defense, that unless we act promptly, we're going to find out that our troops are not going to get their paychecks and the services that are available for military families are going to be denied unless Congress acts. So why would we engage in this kind of delay? Finally, Mr. President, I would say that the Graham bill, Burr bill does provide for the full cost of a four-year public school education in my state of Texas, which costs roughly $55,000 a year. This bill provides $58,000 a year worth of benefits and added to things like the hazelwood act, which allow for tuition forgiveness, is a good benefit and one certainly deserved by the veterans who take advantage of their G.I. benefits in my home state, and I'm proud to support it.
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