A Better Deal for Our Vets

By U.S. Senator Jon Kyl Congress recently sent the President an emergency funding bill dedicated to providing resources for our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan; but unfortunately, $80 billion in other non-emergency spending unrelated to our nations security was attached to the bill. I voted for the troop funding and against the unrelated funding. For example, the bill included $178 million for prisons; $8.2 billion for a 13-week extension of unemployment benefits (and $178 million to administer it); $400 million for science initiatives; $210 million for the census; $150 million for the Food and Drug Administration; and $73 million for Katrina housing vouchers. And the worst part: to pay for some of these initiatives, $3.6 billion was taken away from funding for the war against terrorists. The bill also included an expansion of G.I. benefits a program created after World War II to provide financial assistance to veterans to help them pursue higher education. While I support expanding G.I. education benefits, this bill spends $62 billion to expand the program but only for service members on active duty since September 11, 2001 and it does so in a very inefficient way and at a cost in mandatory spending far more than necessary to pay for the benefits. The bill also treats veterans with the same amount of active duty service differently. Monthly G.I. benefit payments are calculated according to the cost of the highest public tuition in the state where the veteran goes to school. For example, a veteran with three years of active duty service who attends the University of Arizona would receive about $15,775 per year, while a veteran with three years of active duty service who attends a college in New York would receive about $29,360 per year. As I discussed in a recent column, I would have preferred adopting the proposal I cosponsored with Senators John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and Richard Burr. Our proposal would have expanded education benefits for all veterans who are eligible for G.I. benefits, including those who served on active duty prior to 9/11, and would have saved taxpayers over $24 billion in the way it is administered. It also would have eliminated the disparity of veterans benefits based upon where a veteran lives, and instead distributed benefits based upon length of service. And, unlike the bill included in the emergency spending package, the McCain-Graham-Burr alternative bill would have also increased educational benefits to all National Guard and Reserve members and allowed service members to use up to $6,000 per year of their education benefits to repay federal student loans. For those reasons, I believe that the McCain-Graham-Burr alternative was a much better option than the bill that passed the Senate and a better deal for our veterans. By delaying the previously passed emergency war funding bill for our troops and then attaching this $80 billion in unrelated spending, congressional Democrats force the President to either sign a bill bloated with unrelated mandatory spending initiatives or risk withholding the resources our troops urgently need. The President should not have to make that choice, but he will obviously not let the troops down.