Webb GI bill nets big win in Senate

WASHINGTON

The Senate overwhelmingly backed a landmark increase in educational aid to the nation’s veterans on Thursday, defying the White House and challenging President Bush to make good on a threatened veto.

“This is taking care of the people who’ve taken care of us,” said Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., who has championed the enhanced benefit since taking office last year. “Our work is not done yet,” he cautioned supporters, citing the White House’s opposition.

Webb’s Virginia colleague in the Senate, Republican John Warner, was more confident. “This will become the law of the land,” he declared.

Senators voted 75-22 to attach the revamped GI Bill to a $165 billion appropriations measure for continued military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The total is $57 billion more than Bush requested and includes billions of dollars in additional aid to victims of Hurricane Katrina and heating subsidies for the poor, among other domestic programs.

With an estimated 10-year cost of $51 billion, the Webb proposal would be the largest increase in decades in a veterans aid program. Modeled after the GI bill provided to World War II veterans, the measure would give veterans tuition aid equal to the cost of the most expensive public college in their home states once they’ve served for at least three years since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Veterans choosing private schools, which typically are more expensive, could get additional aid if their colleges agreed to reduce tuitions. And all participants would be eligible for a monthly cost-of-living stipend while attending college.

In a concession to the administration engineered by Warner, Webb agreed to amend the legislation later this year to permit career service members to transfer at least part of their college aid to a spouse or children. The White House has argued that such transferability is critical to efforts to encourage experienced troops to remain in uniform.

Bush has promised to veto any bill spending more than the $108 billion he sought for the war effort. The 75 votes Webb’s plan received Thursday is eight more than supporters would need to override a veto; the administration position apparently has more strength in the House, however.

“There’s a long way to go in this process, and fortunately, it takes two houses of Congress to send a bill to the president,” White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said. “Our position hasn’t changed: This is the wrong way to consider domestic spending, and Congress should not go down this path.”

Thursday’s vote for Webb’s plan represented a greater-than-expected show of strength for the enhanced benefit and underscored an election-year gap between the president and his fellow Republicans.

Twenty-five of the Senate’s 47 Republicans backed the Webb plan, despite the fact that the president and Arizona Sen. John McCain, their party’s presumptive presidential nominee, support a less generous alternative.

McCain was on the campaign trail Thursday and did not take part in the vote. But South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, perhaps McCain’s closest ally in the Senate and the chief sponsor of the administration’s preferred GI Bill plan, renewed arguments that the Webb plan will encourage needed troops to leave the military.

Graham cited a Congressional Budget Office study indicating that the Webb bill could cut the military’s annual re-enlistments by 16 percent. The same report, however, suggested that the prospect of a fully financed college education would stimulate a 16 percent jump in initial enlistments .

Democrats Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, fighting for their party’s presidential nomination, showed up to support Webb’s proposal.

Webb insisted again Thursday that the legislation should not be a partisan issue. He recruited 11 Republicans as co-sponsors in the Senate, he reminded reporters, adding that “if I were able to sit down with John McCain for 10 or 15 minutes, I honestly think that he would support this bill.”

Both Webb and Warner paid tribute Thursday to a broad coalition of veterans groups that supported the bill, with Webb suggesting that their backing might have helped persuade Republicans in particular to differ with the administration.

Patrick Campbell, legislative director for the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, said members of the organization watched with excitement as senators switched their votes on the floor.

The group began working on the bill four months ago with Webb, Warner, and representatives from the American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars, and Military Officers Association of America, Campbell said.

“How can you tell a veteran that’s been to war three or four times that it’s too rich of a benefit?” he asked.

Webb has brushed aside suggestions that the bill’s high profile might help propel him toward the Democratic nomination for vice president. As a former Navy secretary and decorated veteran of the Vietnam War, he is being touted by supporters as well-positioned to strengthen a ticket led by either Obama or Clinton, neither of whom served in the military.

Webb says he’s happy in the Senate but has not ruled out accepting an offer to run. H e also got a boost Thursday from Republican Warner, who is set to retire in January, ending a 30-year Senate career.

“How proud I am to have as my colleague in the Senate Jim Webb,” Warner said, adding that for a freshman senator “to have achieved legislation of this magnitude is a record in and of itself.”

Dale Eisman, (703) 913-9872, dale.eisman@pilotonline.com