The Bush administration opposes a Democratic effort to restore full educational benefits for returning veterans, according to an official's comments last week.
Senate Democrats, led by Virginia's Jim Webb, want the government to pay every penny of veterans' educational costs, from tuition at a public university to books, housing and a monthly stipend.
Such a benefit was a major feature of the historic 1944 G.I. Bill, which put more than eight million U.S. soldiers through college and is now credited by historians as fueling the expansion of America's middle class in the post-war era.
I would argue that the GI Bill was one of the greatest pieces of legislation of the last century, and that had more impact on American's lives than almost any other.
Many of today's conservatives believe their parents pulled themselves up by their
bootstraps to land themselves in the heart of the middle class. What they forget is that those were GI boots paid for by the government of the United States of America. Yes, I mean asshats like you Cal Thomas. Now that the middle class is again slipping away, I think the men and women who are fighting this war ought to at least have a promise of some security when they get home. On any given day in America there are more homeless veterans than there are veterans serving in the Gulf. (About 200,000 per day. As many as 400,000 at some point in a year).The Administration is arguing that the cost of fully funding education for Afghan/Iraq war vets would be an additional $5.4 billion dollars.
This from the same people who sent $9 billion to Iraq --in cash --on pallets only to have it go missing. And they haven't even bothered to look for it.
6 comments:
They could afford to pay for it if the could find the $12 billion in cash that mysteriously went missing.
I know this is a serious post but here I am sitting in a Starbucks (so shoot me - internet problems at home) and I am chortling with laughter... Cal Thomas- ASSHAT! He is loathesome.
Back to serious...Let me add that if we didn't have to spend an extra one billion dollars on the passport snafu that too might free up some dollars.
It is all utter hypocrisy. All of it.
It's never been a resources problem, it's always been a "will" problem. Republicans simply don't have the will to do the right thing. And the Democrats are too often letting them off the hook for their bad behavior.
For what they have done to this country, Bush/Cheney/Rove should all be in prison ... for a very long time.
BAC
I'm with BAC 100%.
i hate Cal Thomas --- a guy in my office always tells me to read Cal Thomas -- to see another side
i hate Cal Thomas
If it hadn't been for the GI Bill, my dad would never have been able to get his civil engineering degree. So instead of getting his education and eventually opening his own firm and putting 5 kids through college (with no grants, only school loans that we all paid back), my siblings and I would likely have been migrant workers just like he was as a kid.
I hate Cal Thomas and I hate politicians, especially republican ones. I especially hate that creepy-ass picture of Cal Thomas that they print next to his column--they "updated" it recently, and it looks like he did the Reagan treatment (including his eyebrows) to cover his gray. Now he looks even more un-dead.
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