I hadn't yet blogged about this issue, because to be perfectly honest I have no idea what to say. There are currently 54 co-sponsors in the Senate of a bill to dramatically expand benefits available to returning GI's under the GI bill. This is such a no brainer that I honestly don't understand why there aren't already 100.
But John McCain isn't one of the 54? That's so bizarre that I just don't know what to say. What's worse is that apparently even McCain himself doesn't know what to say, and all he really needs to say is "yes."
Sens. Jim Webb (D-Va.) and Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) have been asking for McCain's support for over a year now. A year?
Perhaps even more unbelievably, the Dept of Defense is pushing back on this. Why? Because if the college benefits are too generous, people might leave the service and improve their lives. And lord knows we couldn't have that.
The WWII-era GI Bill literally helped create the middle class in this country. It is one of the most phenomenally successful pieces of legislation in the history of this country. And I know that sounds like quite a claim, but I mean that literally. It was instrumental in creating the booming economic conditions under which the Baby Boomers grew up. It wasn't just the right thing to do morally, it was also the right thing to do economically. Then and now.
And yet from McCain... silence. It's just astonishing.
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