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Senate debate intensifies on GI Bill upgrades

With Pentagon officials raising complaints about GI Bill proposals in play on Capitol Hill, sponsors of a Republican proposal moved Wednesday to try to make their package — which meets Pentagon requirements — look even more attractive.

The changes include dropping the controversial $1,200 enrollment fee, expanding the right of career service members to transfer benefits and increasing an allowance to cover the cost of books and supplies.

The concept of transfer rights is critical to getting Pentagon and White House approval because administration officials fear that simply making the GI Bill more generous for service members could lead to an exodus of troops leaving the military to attend college. Officials believe that allowing service members to shift some of their education benefits to family members is likely to keep more members in uniform.

The Pentagon reiterated those concerns Wednesday. “We cannot afford that risk, right now, as we conduct the global war on terror,” Defense Department spokesman Geoff Morrell told reporters. “Now, more than ever, we need to hold on to our superbly trained, battle-tested troops. They are the key to victory in this conflict.

“Now, this is not indentured servitude,” Morrell added. “We’re not trying to, you know, keep people here forever. But we are trying to ... create a system in which troops see the benefit of making a career out of the military, out of being the beneficiaries of the training and the experience and the education that we provide them.”

The changes in S 2938, announced by chief sponsors Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Richard Burr of North Carolina, come after discussions with Pentagon officials, service members and their families about how to craft changes in GI Bill benefits that might be acceptable to the Defense Department.

S 2928 is a Republican alternative to S 22, the 21st Century GI Bill of Rights that was passed by the House of Representatives last week as part of the 2008 war supplemental funding bill.

Burr predicted that the war supplemental including the GI Bill package will be vetoed, leaving the opportunity later this year to try to work out a compromise.

Some of the changes announced by Graham and Burr bring their bill closer in line with S 22. Both measures would drop the $1,200 fee for enrolling in the GI Bill program, provide credit for National Guard and reserve members based on cumulative rather than continuous periods of active duty, and include a $1,000 annual allowance for books and supplies on top of basic benefits.

On one issue, transferring GI Bill benefits to family members, the two pieces of legislation remain far apart — despite an announcement Tuesday night that the sponsors of S 22 were willing to provide a two-year test in which service members who reenlist would have the option of choosing the right to transfer some GI Bill benefits to their family members or receive a reenlistment bonus.

Burr, ranking Republican on the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, said continuing a reenlistment option that already exists “is not enough.”

Graham, ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services subcommittee on personnel and an Air Force Reserve officer, said forcing a choice between a bonus or education benefits for families is not fair to career service members. One of the changes in S 2938 makes transfer rights available to any active or reserve service member who completes at least six years of service, eliminating a previous restriction allowing the services to determine who would be eligible.

Graham said including transfer rights is a big boon for service members, especially enlisted personnel who would not have to worry as much about paying for the college education of children out of retirement checks. “The biggest winner in this bill is the NCO,” he said.

How to pay for the benefits packages is another area of disagreement. The current payment plan for the $52 billion cost of S 22 involves a new surtax on individuals making more than $500,000 a year in adjusted gross income and joint filers making more than $1 million.

Graham and Burr said this would hurt small-business owners who often file as individuals. They propose paying the estimated $38 billion for their revised proposal through a 0.5 percentage point reduction in all discretionary spending programs for the next 10 years, which could include cuts in defense spending and veterans programs.