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Army TimesBy Rick Maze - Staff writer
Posted : Tuesday Apr 29, 2008 17:56:03 EDT
Twenty-six veterans groups rallied on Capitol Hill Tuesday to support a bipartisan measure to improve GI Bill benefits that now has 58 Senate and 249 House co-sponsors. But their message may be slightly tarnished by Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ announcement that he opposes the measure.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the 21st Century GI Bill — S 22 in the Senate and HR 5740 in the House of Representatives — is close to becoming law. “This legislation is wise; it has consensus; it brings us together in a bipartisan way, and we are definitely going to leave no veteran behind,” Pelosi said, pledging, “we are going to say thank you to our veterans by sending them to college.”
The 21st Century GI Bill also is known as the Post-9/11 Veterans’ Educational Assistance Act, and was introduced in January 2007 by Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., who is pressing for a vote on his bill this year. Getting the bill through the Senate requires 60 votes in order to avoid parliamentary delays that could be thrown in front of the bill by a group of Republicans who last week unveiled their own GI bill plan, which is more to the liking of the Pentagon and the Bush administration.
“We need to move expeditiously to get this vital piece of legislation passed this year for our returning Iraq and Afghanistan veterans,” Webb said. “The educational benefits in this bill are crucial to a service member’s readjustment to civilian life, and are a cost of war that should receive the same priority that funding the war has received the last five years.”
Read more:
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/04/military_gibill_042908w/
Gates hints strongly at support for McCain bill
By Roxana Tiron and J. Taylor Rushing
Posted: 04/29/08 06:23 PM
On the day that Democratic leaders rallied to support overhauling the GI Bill, Defense Secretary Robert Gates raised the political stakes by hinting that the administration supports a competing bill by presumptive GOP presidential candidate Sen. John McCain (Ariz.).
Gates on Tuesday said he does not back a bill sponsored by Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.) that is supported by both Democratic presidential contenders, Sens. Hillary Clinton (N.Y.) and Barack Obama (Ill.).
Gates’s intervention came as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and dozens of veterans’ advocacy groups rallied in a show of force for the Webb bill, which would overhaul the extant GI Montgomery Bill.
Webb has 58 co-sponsors in the Senate and 250 supporters in the House for companion legislation.
Gates sent a letter on Tuesday to McCain answering the candidate’s questions about Webb’s bill. Webb, a Vietnam veteran and a potential Democratic vice presidential pick, had been trying for weeks to have McCain sign on to his legislation.
more:http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/gates-hints-strongly-at-support-for-mccain-bill-2008-04-29.html
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