Congress tries to fix GI Bill for reservists

[unhappycamper]

Congress tries to fix GI Bill for reservists
By Rick Maze - Staff writer
Posted : Wednesday Nov 7, 2007 17:42:17 EST

A bipartisan bill to fix a glitch in GI Bill eligibility that has denied thousands of National Guard and reserve members the right to bigger education benefits has run into an unexpected hurdle — a $33 million price tag.

At issue is a fluke in a law intended to make Guard and reserve members eligible for GI Bill payments at active-duty rates if they were mobilized for a minimum of 20 months in support of a contingency operation. Members of a Minnesota National Guard unit discovered in July that after 22 months of duty, including 16 in combat, they were ineligible because of the wording of their mobilization orders.

The bill, HR 3882, is aimed at correcting this problem.

When the unit returned last summer, 1,162 members of the Minnesota National Guard’s 1st Brigade Combat Team, 34th Infantry Division, were found ineligible for active-duty GI Bill benefits because their mobilization orders did not clearly state they were being call up for 730 or more days, one of the criteria used to determine eligibility.

The bill would fix this, retroactive to Sept. 11, 2001, by modifying the wording so it would apply to someone called up for any period of three years or less. Unchanged would be the requirement to serve 20 continuous months of active service and to pay a $1,200 enrollment fee to receive active-duty GI Bill benefits, which are about $200 a month more than reserve GI Bill benefits for those with less than three years of active service.

Lawmakers had hoped to quickly pass the bill, but the cost estimate would slow things down.


Rest of article at: http://www.navytimes.com/news/2007/11/military_gibill_071107w/



uhc comment: Wow! A whole $33,000,000 over ten years. Yet we spend $2,002,000,000 for Tomahawk cruise missiles on a retrofitted submarine, $329,000,000 for a plane in the shop for corrosion problems, and can't get clean socks to our troops.

Thank you fiscal conservatives.

[peace13]

1. Gotta love your comment.

How many people realize that we are collecting white socks for soldiers in grocery stores. We have had a box in our local store for over two months now. 1) People are not filling the *amn thing, 2) Couldn't the socks be bought for much less in bulk? It is beyond baffling how that is cost effective. I bought the socks just to get the box full and on its way. In the olden days the socks would be sent to the troops and the citizens would be the ones without socks. Go figure. Peace, Kim