GI Education Benefits Fairness Act

Floor Speech

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I introduced a bill this week that would fix a small problem with the Post-9/11 GI bill that is creating big problems for some servicemember and veteran families.

In 2010, SFC Angela Dees sent her son, Christopher Webb, to the University of Illinois at Chicago after receiving approval from DOD that she could transfer her GI benefits to pay for his education.

Dees first enlisted in the Army in 1998. At the time, she was married, and Christopher was her stepson. But after a divorce, she went to court and obtained sole legal custody, raising him from a 2-year-old into a young man. Since she never formally adopted him he was legally considered her ward.

But no matter how you slice it, Angela Dees is Chris's mother, and he is her son.

But halfway through Chris's first year at UIC, he received a letter from the VA telling him that he could no longer use his mother's GI benefits. The letter explained that he needed to repay the first year's benefits, $30,000.

What happened?

It turns out they were caught in a bureaucratic wrinkle with enormous implications for this family. Foster children and legal wards like Chris are considered dependents by the Department of Defense, but not by the VA.

Servicemembers can pass along their GI Bill benefits to their spouses or children if they re-up for 4 more years. So Angela did that. In good faith, she signed an Army contract for 4 more years so that she could give her son a college education.

But the left hand of government did not know what the right hand of government was doing. So when it came time for the VA to pay Chris's tuition bill, VA said no. In their case, neither of them had the money to repay the VA, so Chris had to drop out of school and get a job in order to pay it back.

According to DOD, at least 25 students are in the same boat--approved by DOD, they enrolled in school only to have their benefits revoked by the VA when the bill came due.

It is an expensive bureaucratic nightmare for these families, and it should be fixed.

The Post-9/11 GI bill is the most comprehensive education benefits package for servicemembers since 1944. It was the first time we granted servicemembers the opportunity to transfer some or all of their earned benefits to family members.

But in this small way it is clear that the benefit does not match our intent.

The GI Education Benefits Fairness Act, S. 2014, will fix that.

This bill is very simple: it will align the definition of an ``eligible child'' at the DOD and the VA so that wards and foster children also qualify, and it will offer retroactive payment to those whose benefits were revoked because of the original discrepancy.

The bill has the support of many veteran and military advocacy groups: the Military Officers Association of America, Veterans of Foreign Wars, the American Legion, Student Veterans of America, the National Military Family Association, the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, the Association of the United States Navy, and the Foster Parent Association of America.

In the House, Representatives Bill Foster and Cathy McMorris Rodgers are leading a companion bill in a bipartisan effort.

These servicemembers have made good on their obligations to our country. And the GI Education Benefits Fairness Act allows us to make good on the promises we have made to them.

I hope my colleagues will join me in support of this important bill.

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