Include GI Bill in war funding, veterans urge

[unhappycamper]

Include GI Bill in war funding, veterans urge
By Rick Maze - Staff writer
Posted : Wednesday Jun 18, 2008 6:31:49 EDT

With a critical vote coming as early as Thursday on whether to include GI Bill improvements in a war funding bill, a new veterans’ group is targeting seven lawmakers who could hold the key to whether the so-called GI Bill for the 21st Century becomes law.

Derek Blumke, president of Student Veterans of America, said in a message to his membership that a group of fiscally conservative Democrats is worried about how to pay for the $58 billion benefits package and needs to be persuaded that there is nothing wrong with paying for better educational opportunities for veterans as a cost of war.

The targeted representatives, all Democrats, are Marion Berry and Mike Ross of Arkansas, Allen Boyd of Florida, Dennis Cardoza of California, Dennis Moore of Kansas, John Tanner of Tennessee and Gene Taylor of Mississippi.

All seven are part of the Blue Dog Coalition, a group of moderate to conservative Democrats who unified years ago to battle excessive spending. Boyd, Ross and Moore are all coalition officers.

Blue Dogs succeeded earlier this year in forcing House Democratic leaders to propose a surtax on wealthy taxpayers in order to pay for the full tuition plus a stipend that would be provided if the GI Bill improvements took effect.


Rest of article at: http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/06/military_gibill_improvements_061708w/



uhc comment: Want some ideas on how to pay $58,000,000,000?

Here ya go:

The 2009 military budget is $737,500,000,000. Just for giggles, let's cut that to Clinton's last military budget and add 10% for inflation, gas costs, etc. The new military budget would be around $335,000,000,000 and that does not include the cost to continue the occupations.

$737,500,000,000 - $335,000,000,000 = $402,500,000,000.

We should also have some new rules, perhaps something like:

• $335,000,000,000 is it. You guys ain't getting anymore, period.
  
• Stop this stupid 'supplemental appropriations' bullshit. You want an occupation? Include it in your budget. You want another war? Take it out of the $335,000,000,000.
  
• Stop outsourcing military jobs to contractors.
  
• Stop privatizing military housing.
  
• All the costs of retraining veterans (GI BIll included) are paid for by the 'extra' $402,500,000,000.
  
• All the costs of caring for injured veterans are paid for by the 'extra' $402,500,000,000.
  
• All the costs of finding homes for homeless veterans are paid for by the 'extra' $402,500,000,000.
  
• Dump the Deepwater program.
  
• Dump the FCS program.
  
• Dump the F-22 program.
  
• Dump the F-35 program.
  
• Dump the militarization of space program.
  
• Dump the missle defense program.
  
• Dump cost+ military procurement programs.
  
• Dump one half of the 737+ United States military bases around the world.
  
• Get out of Iraq.
  
• End the occupation of Afghanistan. The Russkies couldn't do it, and neither can we.
  
• Get out of Africa.
  
• Close SOA/WHINSEC.
  
• Stay out of Latin America.
  

/rant off

That's all that came to mind. Perhaps I could come up with more if I were to think carefully about it.

[DaLittle Kitty]

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Thanks soldier! :)

[DaLittle Kitty]

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[unhappycamper]

3. The top link still works.

They use something called dynamic addressing over at Army Times, which sometimes gives funky results. If the one of the links doesn't work, try the other one.