Bill Statistics
The Middle Class Position
How They Voted
Grades
The Senate receives a grade of C for its support of the middle class on this piece of legislation.
75 Senators voted for the middle-class position; 22 voted against.
The House receives a grade of C for its support of the middle class on this piece of legislation.
256 Representatives voted for the middle-class position; 166 voted against.
See how each member voted on this bill:
Amendment to the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs and Related Agencies Appropriations Act of 2008
- College tuition
- Contracting
- Drug safety
- Education
- Food safety
- Government Accountability
- Health Care
- Heating fuel
- Income taxes
- Medicare
- Public infrastructure
- Tax Fairness
- Unemployment
- Workplace & Job Creation
06.11.2007 [House]
Rep. Chet Edwards [D-TX]
Amendment #3 to the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs and Related Agencies Appropriations Act expands the higher education benefits available to service members under the GI Bill and extends unemployment insurance. The GI Bill provisions of the Act provide funding equivalent to four-year scholarships for veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars who have served at least three years of active duty. Service members who serve less than three years are granted scholarship money in proportion to the length of their active duty service. The bill limits scholarship amounts to the tuition of the most expensive in-state public school. The bill also authorizes a monthly stipend for housing, books, and supplies. A 0.47% tax surcharge on individuals with incomes greater than $500,000 a year and on couples with incomes greater than $1 million a year offsets the $51.6 billion cost of the expanded GI bill provisions.
Amendment #3 also extends eligibility for unemployment benefits in every state by 13 weeks after the current 26 weeks of regular unemployment benefits have expired. The bill authorizes an additional 13-week extension in states with unemployment rates of 6% or more. This temporary extension, ending in March of 2009, will cost $11.1 billion over ten years.
In addition, Amendment #3 places a moratorium on seven Medicaid regulations drafted by the Department of Health and Human Services. This moratorium was included in the Protecting the Medicaid Safety Net Act of 2008, which was passed by the House earlier this year. The amendment also includes provisions to increase transparency and accountability in federal contracting. Finally, the legislation provides $5.8 billion in funds to strengthen levees in New Orleans and funding for emergency international food aid and military quality of life initiatives such as child care centers and hospital construction.
The Senate version does not include the tax surcharge and so is not revenue neutral. Additionally, the Senate amendment contains funds for heating subsidies for low-income families, for the Food and Drug Administration, and for infrastructure projects.
The Middle Class Supports. The American economy remains at risk of recession and the employment picture is dim. In the first four months of 2008, the American economy lost 260,000 jobs and 400,000 workers were classified as “discouraged,” wanting work but believing that no jobs were available for them. Unemployment benefits provide direct assistance to the current and aspiring middle-class Americans likely to be hardest hit during the economic downturn. Moreover, the unemployed are most likely to spend their unemployment benefits immediately, providing an economic jolt that will enhance the stimulus generated by the tax rebates sent out earlier this year. Indeed, extension of unemployment benefits provides $1.64 in stimulus for every dollar spent, making the policy one of the most effective stimulus measures.
The “New GI Bill” measures are also important. Our nation owes those young people who have volunteered to fight for the United States a fair opportunity to enter the middle class. After World War II, the education and other benefits of the GI Bill allowed unprecedented numbers of returning soldiers to access a middle-class standard of living, but today’s GI Bill, intended for peacetime, does not provide adequate benefits. This amendment would change that. Veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars face not only the challenges of readjustment to civilian life, frequently complicated by injury or mental illness, but the rising cost of higher education impacting middle-class Americans across the United States. The current GI bill covers only 60-70% of the cost of tuition at a four-year public university and less than two years at a private college. The Amendment to the supplemental appropriations bill would permit the equivalent of full scholarships to public institutions of higher learning to any service member who completed three years of service.
Imposing a moratorium on Administration-proposed Medicaid regulations will ensure continued health care access for aspiring middle-class beneficiaries and prevent a devastating loss of funding to states, public hospitals, and local schools already struggling during the economic downturn.
The provisions that increase accountability and transparency in federal contracting are welcome, but are not as comprehensive as those included in the Accountability in Contracting Act, passed by the House last year.
The Senate version contains welcome funding for programs that benefit aspiring middle-class and middle-class Americans.
“This legislation would substantially increase the educational benefits available to service members who have served since September 11, 2001. It would cover the cost of tuition of up to the most expensive in-state public school and provide a living and book stipend, so new veterans can focus on their educations and readjusting to civilian life. The new GI Bill would also provide more equitable benefits to National Guardsman and Reservists, who have made up about a quarter of our fighting force in Iraq. And educational benefits would be linked to the cost of college, so they would keep their value over time. It is, in short, the right thing to do for the men and women who have made such a tremendous commitment to our country.”
– Paul Rieckhoff, Executive Director and Founder, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (5/7/2008)
“It is important to note that extending UI [Unemployment Insurance] benefits would be effective on two fronts. First, it would support the families who have lost the most in the current economic slowdown, and second, it would provide an important and effective economic stimulus. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that once up and running, a national UI extension would put more than one billion dollars per month in the hands of jobless workers and their families…The effectiveness of the UI stimulus is due to the fact that the long-term unemployed, who are likely to have depleted their savings, tend to quickly spend essentially every dollar they receive on necessities found in their local economy…Immediately extending unemployment benefits is not only the right thing to do for the families of the long-term jobless in this demonstrably slow and slowing labor market, it is also very smart economic policy.”
– Heidi Shierholz, Economic, Economic Policy Institute (4/10/2008)
Helping those hardest hit by the economic downturn and enabling returning soldiers to access a middle-class standard of living should not be controversial measures. Yet Congress has had to attach these commonsense pieces of legislation to a “must-pass” military appropriations bill to ensure their passage. This is disappointing. Though all parties recognize the current economic downturn, the most effective stimulus measure has not been passed and middle-class Americans are becoming more, not less, burdened by the high costs of food and gas, as well as health care and education. Congress and the President must turn their recognition of the economic downturn into action and pass legislation to assist returning soldiers and the unemployed for the sake of middle-class Americans and the American economy at large.
Critics have suggested that the new GI bill might lead to premature defection from the armed services. However, a three-year commitment in exchange for scholarship benefits is sufficient for an all-volunteer military. Though higher education benefits are a good means to recognize the service of volunteer soldiers, obtaining such benefits should not be a reason for young men and women to join and to remain in the armed forces.