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Bill would allow retirees to transfer GI Bill

Just two months after the Post-9/11 GI Bill officially launched, House lawmakers are considering a number of changes to the program, including allowing military retirees to transfer benefits to spouses or children.

“While the option of transferability is a welcome option for service members who are eligible to re-enlist, it fails to provide this option to veterans who have honorably served a minimum of 20 years of honorable active-duty military service,” said sponsor Rep. Ciro Rodriguez, D-Texas. “Retirees are most likely in a better position to transfer the benefit, considering many have already received their college education and most likely have children who are eligible to attend college.”

For current service members, the right to transfer GI Bill benefits requires a minimum of six years of service and a new four-year commitment. The four-year commitment can be reduced for people retiring from the military who do not have four more years to serve.

The new bill would cover anyone eligible for the GI Bill who retired with 20 years or more of service. Depending on how the details are worked out, this could mean retirees who had served 90 days or longer on active duty since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

But two words spoken by Rep. John Boozman of Arkansas, ranking Republican on the House Veterans Affairs subcommittee on economic opportunity, put a shadow over the idea of making the new veterans education benefit plan even more generous.

Those words were “pay-go,” Congress-speak for paying as you go, which in this case means finding money from some other source to pay for any improvements in the new GI Bill that drive up the program’s costs.

Pay-go requirements can be avoided. A prime example: Congress didn’t pay for the Post-9/11 GI Bill when it passed last June after its sponsors were able to attach it to the off-budget supplemental wartime defense appropriations bills.

Opportunities like that don’t come often, however, and are likely to be extremely rare in the future if the Obama administration carries through with a pledge to cover future war costs out of the regular defense budget rather than in through supplemental appropriations.

The subcommittee, headed by Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, D-S.D., is in no rush to make any changes, preferring to hold off until next year to avoid further complicating the difficult launch of the new benefits program.

Keith Wilson, the Veterans Affairs Department’s education service director, urged lawmakers to go slow with changes and to avoid setting tight deadlines for anything that does pass.

At a hearing in which a dozen ideas for improving the Post-9/11 GI Bill were discussed, Boozman said he thinks there are some good proposals if pay-go requirements could be satisfied. This could be done by diverting money from other veterans programs or by getting Congress to approve a bigger VA budget.

Cost estimates are not yet available for GI Bill changes, so it is not clear how much money the subcommittee would have to find.

Also being considered:

• HR 2928, which would add apprenticeships and on-the-job training to the types of education covered by the Post-9/11 GI Bill. The American Legion endorses the bill, saying in a statement that “veterans should never be limited in the manner they use their educational benefits.”

• HR 3554 would count time that National Guard members spend mobilized on homeland security missions toward earning Post-9/11 GI Bill benefits. Federally funded and federally controlled mobilizations count toward earning benefits, but time spent on state-controlled missions under Title 32 of the U.S. Code does not count. That means Guard members involved in border security, protecting U.S. airspace and on full-time active duty under the Active Guard and Reserve program do not get credit. That would change under the bill sponsored by Rep. Dave Loebsack, D-Iowa.

• HR 3561 would increase GI Bill coverage for flight training to cover 75 percent of tuition and fees rather than the current 60 percent. Rep. Harry Teague, D-N.M., the chief sponsor, said flight schools cost $60,000 to $90,000, so the increase would be a significant help.