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Bill: Let vets use GI Bill to run businesses

A bill that would allow veterans to use Montgomery GI Bill benefits to start or run their own businesses is pitting veterans groups against one another.

The nation’s largest group — the American Legion — came out in support Thursday for the Veterans’ Entrepreneurial Transition Business Benefit Act, a bill with a precedent-setting idea of allowing education benefits to be used for something other than training and education.

But the nation’s largest group of combat veterans — Veterans of Foreign Wars — opposes the legislation, and so does the Veterans Affairs Department.

That leaves the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee’s economic opportunity panel, which is considering the bill, uncertain how to proceed.

The bill has been pending before the panel since Jan. 9, 2009, a sign the measure is not on a fast track to approval unless differences can be reconciled.

“Not every veteran is destined for college,” said Catherine Trombley, assistant director of the American Legion’s national economic commission, who argued that GI Bill benefits “need to be more accessible for those veterans with entrepreneurial aspirations.”

Letting veterans use education benefits to own and operate their own businesses “will allow veterans an extra income to sustain their families until the business turns a profit,” Trombley said.

That can be important because so many separating services members face family-related financial obligations when they get out, she said.

“Meeting the financial obligations to sustain and maintain a household is vital, and often serves as a major obstacle to their timely use of the Montgomery GI Bill.”

The bill, HR 114, would apply only to Montgomery GI Bill benefits, which currently pay a flat rate of $1,368 a month for up to 36 months of benefits for those who enrolled in the program and served three years or longer on active duty.

Rep. Jeff Fortenberry, R-Neb., the sponsor of HR 114, said he intends to offer similar legislation that would allow Post-9/11 GI Bill benefits to be used as financial support when buying or operating a small business.

Paralyzed Veterans of America also support the bill. “If a veteran chooses this path for employment in the civilian world, Congress should support their effort and allow the funds earned for college courses to be used to help secure the future of the veteran,” said Richard Daley, the group’s association legislation director.

But Eric Hilleman, director of the VFW’s national legislative service, said the GI Bill was never intended to be used to help start a business.

“The purpose of the GI Bill is to provide education, training and the skills to help succeed, not to provide start-up money,” he said. “The Small Business Administration has programs which address the specific needs of business start-ups.”

Thomas Pamperin of VA’s Veterans Benefits Administration said VA supports helping veterans start their own business but doesn’t think GI Bill benefits should be used for that purpose.

VA is willing to work with Congress and with the Small Business Administration to find another way to help veterans start up businesses, he said.

One of VA’s concerns is that the bill would require VA to make judgments on whether a veteran has a good enough business plan to warrant using GI Bill benefits for temporary financial support.

VA doesn’t have that kind of expertise, Pamperin said, and the bill includes “no guidance as to how VA would determine the particular amount of education assistance an individual could receive or how VA would otherwise implement its provisions.”

DISCUSS: New way to use GI Bill