An education for veterans

President Bush and the Democrat-controlled Congress can each be faulted for turning the debate over a Montgomery G.I. Bill update into an election-year political football. At this time of war and with the costs of tuition increasing, expanded educational opportunities for veterans are in order. And yet, Mr. Bush busily issues veto threats against a viable bipartisan Senate proposal, ostensibly on grounds of fiscal prudence, while, to their equal discredit, Democrats make deceptive charges about an alternative proposal from the Republican minority which also has merits. Rather than admit honest differences and examine them, the partisans instead use the occasion to suggest, wrongly, that Sen. John McCain seeks to short-change American veterans. Nice going, Washington.

The proposal in the Senate is bipartisan, championed by the Democratic leadership and sponsored by Sen. James Webb of Virginia. It would measurably improve veterans’ educational opportunities. At a cost of $2.5 million to $4 billion, S. 22, the “Post 9/11 Veterans Educational Assistance Act,” matches the highest in-state tuition rates for beneficiaries, waives a $1,200 enrollment fee, pays for books and fees, and furnishes a modest living stipend. S. 22 echoes the post-World War II educational benefits that today are rightly credited on both sides of the aisle with helping make postwar middle-class prosperity attainable for a very wide swath of American veterans. After six and more years of repeated deployments and interrupted lives — to say nothing of stagnant middle-class incomes — redressing the G.I. bill is most welcome. The Veterans of Foreign Wars calls the Senate proposal “the right bill at the right time.”

The Republican bill, the “Enhancement of Recruitment, Retention and Readjustment Through Education Act,” is sponsored by Sens. Lindsay Graham and Richard Burr and endorsed by Mr. McCain. Two key differences are a national payment formula, as opposed to S. 22’s state-specific one, and a provision to make benefits transferrable to the spouses and dependents of service members. We don’t support the legacy entitlement.

But we instead hear the same partisans grinding familiar axes. Last week, the Senate’s supremely partisan Majority Leader Harry Reid was heard caterwauling that “Senators McCain, Graham and Burr have finally been dragged into the debate over providing proper support for our troops.” This follows former Gen. Wesley Clark’s co-authored Los Angeles Times Op-Ed three weeks ago suggesting that Mr. McCain’s failure to sign on to S. 22 is “casting doubt on his own commitment to the newest generation of American heroes.” The powers in the Senate are now threatening to attach the bill to the war supplemental, which the president vows to veto if it exceeds $108 billion. Both sides are spoiling for a fight.

If the White House and Congress can set aside partisanship on just one issue, this should be the one.

Veterans’ benefits are too important an issue to be torn asunder. Our fighting men and women deserve passage of a clean war supplemental bill that tells them “America has your back.” Likewise, they deserve a benefits bill that delivers on the original intent of the Montgomery G.I. Bill — and that is to offset some higher education costs.