Why doesnt John Mccain support the new GI Bill?

Question

Why doesnt John Mccain support the new GI Bill?

Answer 1

He claims because the bill had too much pork. Did anyone follow up and ask him how many bills he's seen in 20 years in the Senate (and that he voted in favor of) that didn't have any pork? No, of course not. Another free pass for the Doubletalk Express.

Answer 2

He says that it would decrease retention of service members.  Which it will.  Sen. McCain does not realize that retention does not matter because most of the soldiers only stay 3 years anyway.  The new bill will increase enrollment and actually increase the total number of service members in the armed services.

Answer 3

Because the leader of the "forked tongue" express" intends to have a WAR Presidency like GWB...Anyone with Joe "AIPAC"  Lieberman following him around, wants as many soldiers being "stop-lossed" and forced to stay in the military as possible.

He has been 100% disabled and receiving $58,000 a year since the 70's, yet has not been a leader in fighting for the basic needs of the disabled vets.

If he doesn't know where Walter Reed Hospital is - I don't know who does.

Answer 4

Soldiers just need to get over there, they don't need to worry about any extra benefits.

Those lib soldiers should stop whining.

Why do soldiers hate America?

Answer 5

One of the basic reasons he doesn't support the new GI Bill you're referring to is because he believes it will hurt retention in the military...

ie. if soldiers are offered a free university education after serving one tour of duty (as an example, because I'm not sure offhand exactly what the time frame is to qualify), then there is a lot less incentive to re-opt for another tour.  

And that would affect not only the number of soldiers that the military now gets for a second or third tour, but also potential career soldiers who may have stayed in 20 or 30 years because the pay and benefits are the best they could get with just a high school education (for instance).

The Obama etc argument to support this new Bill is that soldiers today should get the same benefits provided in the GI Bill put in place back in 1944...

But of course the difference is that WW2 was won within 4 years of the US entering it, so they *wanted* to reduce the number of troops in 1945 because they didn't need as many of them any more.

But the current "war on terror" (Iraq & Afghanistan), along with other commitments (ie. bases in Okinawa, S Korea, etc), means that the US military needs to keep as many troops as they possibly can... instead of having them leave for their free education after serving the minimum amount of time possible.

Proponents of the new Bill say that offering free education will bring in enough new troops to offset the ones that leave (who would have otherwise stayed in)... but whether that turns out to be true is the big question.  Plus you would have untrained green soldiers replacing experienced ones, if you used that train of thought.

So that's one (basic) angle to answer your question and hope it was of some use to you!  :)

Answer 6

He does support the bill, he just favored another bill that would increase benefits the longer you serve. But, he has since said he will support this one, because it passed and the other didn't.