Leaving Combat for the Classroom
Dissecting the new GI bill's benefits.
The war spending bill President Bush signed into law this week includes one of the most dramatic bumps in troop benefits to come along in decades: a new military funding measure that roughly doubles the money troops would be eligible to get for college once they've completed at least three years in the military. Under the bill, veterans can attend the most expensive public university in their home state for four years with tuition fully covered—or they can apply the amount to tuition at a private university. They will also get $1,000 a month for housing and living expenses and more money for books and tutoring. The Pentagon opposed the bill, fearing fewer GIs would re-enlist as a result, but VirginiaDemocratic Sen. Jim Webb, the bill's sponsor, believes it will actually lead to higher recruitment numbers. Webb modeled the legislation after Franklin Roosevelt's World War II GI bill, legislation that made academia accessible to a much larger swath of the population and changed American society almost overnight. For perspective on how the new bill affect troops and universities, NEWSWEEK's Dan Ephron spoke to Dartmouth College President James Wright, who helped draft the legislation. Excerpts:
NEWSWEEK: Historians say Roosevelt's GI bill really shaped postwar America. How much impact can we expect from this bill?
Wright: I don't think anything could have the comprehensive impact that the World War II GI bill had. That really led to the democratization of American higher education in some pretty basic ways, and indeed you might say a democratization of American society and American opportunity. Before the Second World War, a college education was not a requirement for most positions, most career paths. … I think what the GI bill did at the end of World War II and what the current GI bill will do on a lesser scale is expand the opportunity to dream about doing something different.
How are soldiers different today?
I would say that the veterans of World War II and Vietnam were more representative of the demography of American society than are the young men and women who are in the military today in the all-volunteer Army. I think the current military is whiter than our society as a whole; it is less urban, it's more Southern and Western, and that does not represent the full population of the country. But these are exactly the population groups where people have not pursued higher education in the same numbers, the same proportions, and I think [the new bill] will cause people who may not have thought about going on to pursue their education to do that now.
You helped write this bill. What was your contribution?
I had been in touch with Sen. Webb, and went down and spent an afternoon with Sen. Webb and Sen. [John] Warner [R-Va.] and Sen. [Chuck] Hagel [R-Neb.]. One of the reasons some people at the time were resisting the new GI bill was the potential cost at private schools. And so we talked about that situation, and certainly it was my view and theirs that we did not want to close out the opportunity for veterans to go to private schools. … And so the language I was involved in had to do with the idea that the GI bill will provide support for the costs of the most expensive public university in the state where a student enrolls, and if the tuition rate is higher than that, [private] universities and colleges might elect to join with the government in sharing the cost for the incremental charge.
How many Iraq and Afghanistan veterans attend Dartmouth?
Last year, we enrolled three veterans who came in the fall of '07—three Marines, one of whom I first met down at Bethesda hospital, which I started visiting in '05. And there are six more who will be coming in next year.
Why were you visiting GIs in Bethesda?
It was following the battle of Falujah, which I found just such a powerful emotional experience—the casualties and the suffering there. I was talking to a Dartmouth friend who was a retired Marine officer about how I wish[ed] there was some way to reach out and encourage these veterans to pursue higher education, and he suggested I go visit them at the hospital. He was in touch with someone in the [Bethesda Naval Hospital] commandant's office, who authorized me to visit, which I did in the summer of '05. It was a very powerful experience for me, and I've been back 14 or 15 times to Bethesda, Walter Reed and Balboa hospital in San Diego. Basically I go and try to encourage these wounded veterans to pursue their education.
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Member Comments
Posted By: mrzoid @ 07/15/2008 1:01:24 AM
Comment: good god almighty, ur all writing essays!!! All GIs deserve a full payment on their education, and it will help the country to provide it. McCain or Obama, u clowns need to realize that the GIs in this country shouldnt have to worry about your political will in regards to their entitlement. Some are Dems, some are Repub, but all are in danger; thats more than most of you blowhards will ever have to be. Thats not a condemnation against all of you, but alot of you dont know a damn thing about service, and you are pathetic when you talk about our guys (my brother) like they are some sort of political commodity. Knock it off, you dont deserve to use the military for ur political ends, especially you war drum banging pricks that have never served a day in ur lives!!!
Posted By: Nins @ 07/07/2008 1:25:51 PM
Comment: Did you know that if McCain is elected you will have to pay income tax on the value of the medical insurance that your employer gives you? Worse still, he is offering a tax break for people who pay their own insurance, BUT only $2,500 for individuals and $5,000 for families.
Let's say you have a family of four. Your insurance policy costs would be at least $1,500-2,500 per month under a self-pay plan, which cost more than employer group plans. So, you pay $18,000 -$30,000 per year for insurance, and you get to deduct only $5,000 of that. If you paid $25,000 for you insurance, you would be out of pocket $20,000 per year. This is FAR WORSE than the current system, where if you are self employed you can deduct 100% of you medical insurance costs.
So, if you're not self employed, you would stick with your Employer's plan. Employer plans for a family of four have a value of $900-$1,500 per month totaling 10,800-$18,000 per year. Surprise! On April 15th, you owe tax on all of that as INCOME to you. Say your bracket is 25%, and the value of your Employer medical plan is $14,000. You will OWE THE IRS an additional $3,500, and that's ON TOP of whatever monthly premium you already pay to your employer for your insurance.
Many analysts say that McCain's new rules would encourage employers to stop offering health benefits. If that happened, then far fewer Americans would be insured than are insured today, because what family of four can afford $18,000-$30,000 out of pocket per year for self-pay health insurance?
Furthermore, McCain's plan does not require insurance companies to cover pre-existing conditions of people who self-pay their insurance. People under employer group plans have all of their pre-existing conditions covered. This is a hugely unfair aspect of the current system. Insurance companies can afford to cover the pre-existing conditions of the much larger pool of people with group insurance, but they refuse to pay the pre-existing conditions on the smaller pool of self-pay customers. They have been allowed to price gouge the self-pay customers, which is a form of market manipulation that should be illegal.
So let's say one of your kids had diabetes and you have high blood pressure, then your employer stops offering insurance. You now have to buy your own, but you and your child are INELIGIBLE due to pre-existing conditions. Oh, yeah, they will let you buy the insurance, but you can't use it for any pre-existing condition until you have paid on time every month for two years. And you know what happens at one year and 11 months? You get a letter saying your policy has been cancelled. I have many patients this has happened to.
McCain's plan SUCKS.
It does nothing to help middle class working Americans afford or obtain medical insurance. In fact, it makes the current system WORSE.
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/04/29/mccain_unveils_health_care_pla.html?nav=rss_email/components
Posted By: Nins @ 07/04/2008 9:13:57 PM
Comment: Here's some change you can believe in: the amount of times McCain has changed his values and positions on the issues.
The reason half of the conservative Christian right hates McCain is because they think that they can't trust him. McCain started his career as part of the Christian right (there's a little-known fact). Once he landed in the soup as part of the Keating Five (which almost derailed his career) he positioned himself as a liberal and became a reformer for campaign finance in an effort to resurrect himself. In case you who don't remember, the Keating scandal had to do with some shim sham corporations pumping money into McCain's coffers. So McCain became a reformer to shine up his tarnished image, and that was his first departure from the right.
Other, more serious betrayals of the right came later, after McCain got swift boated by Bush. The great Texas Republican political machine laid McCain to waste, and McCain was mad as hell. He started voting against the party line and against Bush. He suddenly supported abortion rights, opposed the Bush tax cuts, co-sponsored a patient's bill of rights with Kennedy and Edwards, and got on the environmental bandwagon with John Kerry. He called Jerry Falwell an "agent of intolerance." He actually tried to crack down on gun shows in legislation he put forth with then-Democrat Joe Lieberman. In 2001, when Senator Jeffords of Vermont switched from Republican to Independent in an effort to counteract Bush's stranglehold on the Senate, McCain announced that he was considering becoming a Democrat, and went into a pow-wow with Senator Tom Daschle at his Sedona ranch. And did you know that John Kerry floated the idea of having McCain as his VP in '04? That was to have cemented his status as a newly-minted Democrat.
But instead of joining Kerry, McCain suddenly switched his affiliation, came out in support of Bush in '04, and jettisoned his liberal image. Suddenly, it was the "old" McCain from the 1980s back in the saddle, the neo-conservative, take no prisoners Creationist. Against abortion. For the war. The SAME man who opposed a Federal amendment banning gay marriage and openly met with gay groups now was pushing a gay marriage ban in Arizona. The SAME man who said in 1999 that he was opposed to overturning Roe vs. Wade, now suddenly in 2007 is promising that he will stack the deck in the Supreme Court with religious right judges and overturn Roe vs. Wade.
But the religious right isn't so sure about him. He's supported so many different opposing positions at so many times, that they are afraid that they are getting played in the name of McCain's political expediency.
You don't have to take my word for this. Watch news clips of McCain talking about the same issues in different years, which proves what I have written. Get on the Straight Talk Express and get it straight from the horse's mouth:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEtZlR3zp4c
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ajm5JTf7jZs