[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 148 (Thursday, September 6, 2018)]
[House]
[Pages H7875-H7876]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




            LIMITING GI BILL TRANSFERABILITY BREAKS PROMISE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Connecticut (Mr. Courtney) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. COURTNEY. Mr. Speaker, in June 1944, 2 weeks after the D-day 
landings in Normandy, President Franklin Roosevelt signed the 
Servicemen's Readjustment Act, more commonly known as the GI Bill. That 
landmark measure created both college tuition grants and a living 
stipend for returning servicemembers who, according to FDR, had ``been 
compelled to make greater economic sacrifice and every other kind of 
sacrifice than the rest of us.''
  Even though World War II would rage on for another year, leaders in 
Washington at the time recognized that millions of drafted young 
soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen would soon be returning to 
civilian life, and, for their sake and for the sake of the postwar 
economy, creating an educational pathway to the middle class made 
tremendous sense.
  It has been 74 years since the GI Bill was signed into law, and it is 
now recognized as one of the most successful pieces of domestic 
legislation ever enacted. The postwar economic boom of the 1950s and 
1960s, and the blossoming of the American middle class, both have been 
attributed, in part, to the GI Bill.
  Many renowned Americans, including Bob Dole, Johnny Carson, Harry 
Belafonte, Justice William Rehnquist, and even Clint Eastwood, to name 
just a few, were beneficiaries of the GI Bill.
  Economic studies have concluded that for every dollar the U.S. 
Government spent on the GI Bill, our economy saw nearly $7 in return in 
the form of additional economic output and tax revenues from income 
growth.
  Despite its stellar performance, the relative strength of the GI Bill 
deteriorated over time. By 2008, it was clear that the tuition 
assistance and living stipends had not kept pace with the rising costs 
of college education.
  As a freshman Congressman on the House Armed Services Committee, I 
heard from Iraq and Afghan veterans that, because of the GI Bill 
erosion, they were forced to choose between dropping out of school and 
shouldering the burden of student loans.
  To fix this inequity, the Post-9/11 GI Bill was passed by a 
Democratic Congress on a bipartisan basis and signed into law by a 
Republican President, George W. Bush. And I want to actually take a 
moment to publicly acknowledge that the late Senator John McCain was 
deeply involved in the final negotiations that made that passage and 
enactment successful.

  The updated law increased benefits to match the cost of 4-year public 
university tuition in a servicemember's home State and increased the 
living stipend to keep faith with the law. Critically, it also allowed 
GI benefits to be transferred on a one-time basis to a spouse or 
dependent child, a groundbreaking change that transformed the value of 
military service.
  After the bill signing, I flew to Iraq on a congressional visit and 
vividly recall being in Baghdad surrounded by hundreds of soldiers 
bursting with questions about when and how this feature would be 
implemented.
  Over the last 10 years, it has been clear that the transferability of 
the GI Bill benefit has been an enormous morale booster and a valuable 
incentive to enlist and remain in service.
  Despite the 10 years of success of the new law, however, the Trump 
Department of Defense announced a new policy this past July 12 that 
would bar servicemembers with more than 16 years of service from 
transferring their Post-9/11 GI Bill benefits to eligible family 
members.
  Mr. Speaker, I just want to say, as someone who represents a military 
district, in the August break when I was home visiting the submarine 
base in New London and talking to Guard and Reserve members, they were 
absolutely blindsided, stunned, and angry at this arbitrary change that 
many of them had built their career decisions about staying in the 
military to basically qualify for this educational benefit.
  The Iraq and Afghan Veterans of America have started a national 
petition drive to reverse this policy change. Really, it is our duty, 
as Members of Congress, to make sure that that is successful.
  Arbitrarily revoking transferability breaks our commitment to our 
most dedicated and highly trained servicemembers. Such a policy change 
sends exactly the wrong message to those who have chosen the military 
as their long-term career, and sets a damaging and dangerous precedent 
for the removal of other critical benefits to our all-volunteer force.
  Two weeks after the Pentagon announced this policy, 83 of my 
colleagues joined me in a letter that we sent to Secretary of Defense 
James Mattis, objecting to this change and calling for its immediate 
reversal. So far, they have not given a single public explanation for 
this policy change, and

[[Page H7876]]

they are promising that that is coming.
  But I will just say this: As someone who was involved when this bill 
was first passed, we will make sure there will be a legislative 
response if the Department of Defense does not keep faith with those 
who wear the uniform of this country and who have volunteered based on 
reliance of the fact that there would be a GI Bill benefit for them and 
their spouse and children.
  To use FDR's words, protecting transferability ``gives emphatic 
notice to the men and women in our Armed Forces that the American 
people do not intend to let them down.''

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