Guard and Reserve Gi Bill Parity Act of 2021

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. LEVIN of California. Mr. Speaker, I thank Chairman Takano for yielding and for his support and partnership on this legislation and all the work that he does leading our committee.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of the Guard and Reserve GI Bill Parity Act, bipartisan legislation I introduced to deliver some basic fairness in the way we provide GI Bill benefits for the men and women who serve our Nation.

Mr. Speaker, the GI Bill has allowed millions of veterans to pursue higher education and find rewarding career paths.

Servicemembers consistently cite GI Bill benefits as one of the top reasons they choose to serve in our Armed Forces because of the opportunities those benefits provide for them and their families. However, the way that we allow servicemembers to accrue GI benefits is inherently unfair. While Active-Duty servicemembers receive credit for GI Bill benefits every day that they are in the service, Guard and Reserve members only accrue those benefits in very limited circumstances.

That disparity continues to exist despite the fact that Guard and Reserve members are increasingly taking on the same risks and doing the same jobs as their Active-Duty counterparts. We have seen this trend for decades but it has become especially pronounced over the last 2 years.

In response to the attack on our Capitol on January 6 of last year, 25,000 National Guard members mobilized from 54 States and territories to protect this institution. For a time, they slept on the cold, hard floors of this building. National Guard members have also deployed across our country to support the COVID-19 response, including Guard members who deployed from Ohio, Maryland, Delaware, and Georgia to assist healthcare operations this month.

In 2020, 1,300 soldiers and airmen from five different States were mobilized to fight wildfires in my State of California and throughout the West Coast. Not only are these National Guard and Reserve members risking their lives to serve our country, but they are also forced to put their civilian lives on hold when they are called up, leaving behind their families and interrupting civilian careers. Similarly, they are forced to put their lives on hold every time they are called up for training. In some of those settings they are serving side by side with Active Duty members doing similar jobs and facing similar risks, but they are not earning the same GI Bill benefits as their peers. That is unacceptable and it is shameful that we have asked Guard and Reserve members to step up in response to natural disasters, the pandemic, and an attack on our democracy without providing them with this fundamental benefit.

Clearly, it is long past time that we provide some basic fairness in the way that we allow Guard and Reserve members to accrue these benefits. The legislation that we are considering today will do exactly that, with a simple fix to ensure that every day they spend in uniform counts towards their GI Bill benefits.

Now, I know my friends on the other side of the aisle might raise concerns about the costs of expanding eligibility for these benefits, and I would note that this bill includes provisions my Republican colleagues have supported in the past to help defray the cost of veterans' benefits. And to my colleagues who still are not willing to pay for these benefits, I would ask them to share their concerns directly with Guard and Reserve members the next time they are deployed in response to a natural disaster or other emergency in the community that they represent.

So I think we all want the same thing. My friends across the aisle, us on this side of the aisle, we all want the same thing. We all want to provide benefits to those who have served our country. I believe that in good faith. I do think that we have to not pay lip service, though. We have to make sure that we support servicemembers and not just when it is politically convenient. We don't need half measures. We don't need things that shortchange our servicemembers. So I think it is time for us to step up. It is time to give them the benefits they have earned for protecting the American people in a way now that they are doing unlike before. And that is what this bill aims to do.

As the chairman mentioned, it has support from a wide range of veteran service organizations, including the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the Student Veterans of America, the National Guard Association of the United States, the Enlisted Association of the National Guard of the United States, and Reserve Officers Association. They are asking us to pass this bill, the Guard and Reserve GI Bill Parity Act, today because they agree that it is past time to provide some basic fairness in the way that we provide GI Bill benefits to Guard and Reserve members.

Mr. Speaker, passing this bipartisan bill is the right thing to do for all the men and women who serve and protect our Nation, and I urge my colleagues to vote ``aye.''

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source