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Gov. Sets Older Vets Against Younger Vets: Pensions 'Up', GI Bill 'Down'

By VVAW

Anyone who is, or has contact with a veteran of World War I or, more and more, World War II, is aware of the financial squeeze with traps many of these vets. Prices gallop along wile Social Security payments and pensions move at a slow walk. For older vets warehoused in decaying V.A. facilities, the situation is constantly critical, and often these veterans are unable to do anything to change their situation.

Veterans or all eras join to applaud increase in pensions for these vets and for the recently passed 7.3% increase for the over 2 million vets with service-connected disabilities, many of them older vets. In the same bill there is even a provision, which might finally straighten out the situation where vets now get social security increases in July only to find them taken back from pension payments in January; instead, the bill will set a constant level with automatic cost of living increases. While the income will still be far from what's needed, at least vets will not be faced by an income which bounces up and down during the year.

Once the new pension plan goes into effect it will increase V.A. pension costs by $10 billion over the next five years. But the V.A. and the government which it belongs to are using this pension to increase as one more spear to stick it to younger vets, particularly vets of the Vietnam-era.

Vets making use of the GI Bill in order to survive while they are in school face some problems similar to older vets—the same rising costs for everything from food to school tuitions to books. While the veterans Affairs Committee of the Senate had projected a 5.5% increase in the GI Bill (not enough to come close to covering inflation but better then nothing), these plans were stuck on the shelf. The reason, according to a staff workers for the Committee, was "strong congressional pressure to give higher priority to pension reform for older veterans. The older veterans have the political clout with Congress," he said.

It's the same tactic that the system uses time and time again—pit older vets against younger vets, turn Black against white through devices like the Bakke decision, set vets preference against jobs for women: the list goes on and on, all pointing towards the single goal of keeping people fighting among themselves so they will not turn their anger toward the cause of our problems.

The V.A. budget request for the next year lists $9.5 billion for pensions and compensation; $2.1 billion for "readjustment benefits" (the various forms of the GI Bill and vocational rehabilitation training); the total budget is 18.3 billion—which is a hellacious chunk of cash. How many of these bucks are actually helping vets as opposed to filing the pockets of bloated bureaucrats it's hard to say. But if the V.A. can't squeeze out another nickel to improve the GI Bill, then it's time to look elsewhere—the defense budget, for instance, or the missing billions that the General Services Administration has squandered filling the pockets of chummy contractors, or even the billions that are sent to help prop up tinhorn dictators like Marcus in the Philippines or the Shah of Iran. There's no reason to help one group of vets at the expense of another.

Of course Carter and the V.A. will point to the figures that show how somewhere around 72% of Vietnam-era veterans have used the GI Bill, the highest percentage ever. But as always when the government starts quoting its statistics, you'd better grab for your wallet because someone is getting ready to rip you off. And the GI Bill statistics prove the point. Of the 7.2 millions vets who have used the GI Bill, 4.3 million (that's about 60%) have used 13 months or less; 3.1 million have used less than 7 months! (these figures come from the publication of the Wisconsin Veterans Union and are based on Wisconsin statistics which are then applied to the country as a whole𔃐there may be variations from place to place, but Wisconsin if fairly typical.)

When Carter or one of his V.A. frontmen tell us how well the GI Bill has been used, how successful it has been, they won't bother with the facts behind the figures. What they'll do is try to run the riff that the high percent of GI Bill use shows that vets can get by𔃐there is no reason for an increase, they'll try to tell us. Once again, they're lying to us. No once can say 3 millions vets dropped out of school because they suddenly lost interest in an education; in fact, a large number of these vets were forced out by GI Bill inadequacies and the constant screw-ups around checks.

With support of their phony figures, the V.A. and government are now trying to give to older vets in hopes that younger vets will somehow be blinded to how they are being robbed. But a lot of us have fought this kind of tactic before and have no patience with it now. We say that vets of whatever era must get what they need to live decently𔃐whether it's pensions for older vets, disability payments for disabled vets, or GI Bill payments for vets in School!