Posted by Jed Lewison on Mon May 26, 2008 at 3:13 PM Pacific

It's Bush-McCain vs. everybody else on the new G.I. Bill

For some inexplicable reason, John McCain has chosen Memorial Day to defend his opposition to Jim Webb's new G.I. Bill -- opposition that he shares with George W. Bush and a handful of other right-wing Republicans.

The Bush-McCain argument against the new bill is hardly inspiring -- if G.I. benefits are expanded, they say, military reenlistment rates will plummet. The New York Times responds:

They would prefer that college benefits for service members remain just mediocre enough that people in uniform are more likely to stay put.

They have seized on a prediction by the Congressional Budget Office that new, better benefits would decrease re-enlistments by 16 percent, which sounds ominous if you are trying — as Mr. Bush and Mr. McCain are — to defend a never-ending war at a time when extended tours of duty have sapped morale and strained recruiting to the breaking point.

Their reasoning is flawed since the C.B.O. has also predicted that the bill would offset the re-enlistment decline by increasing new recruits — by 16 percent. The chance of a real shot at a college education turns out to be as strong a lure as ever. This is good news for our punishingly overburdened volunteer army, which needs all the smart, ambitious strivers it can get.

This isn't really a partisan argument. It's more like Bush-McCain versus the world.

Webb's legislation passed with 75 votes. And last month, John Warner, the former Republican Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee joined in the criticism of McCain's argument:

“I think this argument that it’s going to hurt retention is very thin and tenuous, very thin and tenuous,” said the former chairman. “The flip side of that is, putting a big piece of cheese out there will induce more qualified people to join just to get this. It should be a tremendous incentive for recruitment.”

McCain's opposition to the expansion of G.I. benefits is oddly stubborn. Then again, given McCain's fabulous wealth -- he owns ten homes and flies around the country in his wife's private jet -- it might just be that John McCain is out of touch with normal Americans.

The Bush-McCain argument against the new bill is hardly inspiring -- if G.I. benefits are expanded, they say, military reenlistment rates will plummet. The New York Times responds:

They would prefer that college benefits for service members remain just mediocre enough that people in uniform are more likely to stay put.

They have seized on a prediction by the Congressional Budget Office that new, better benefits would decrease re-enlistments by 16 percent, which sounds ominous if you are trying — as Mr. Bush and Mr. McCain are — to defend a never-ending war at a time when extended tours of duty have sapped morale and strained recruiting to the breaking point.

Their reasoning is flawed since the C.B.O. has also predicted that the bill would offset the re-enlistment decline by increasing new recruits — by 16 percent. The chance of a real shot at a college education turns out to be as strong a lure as ever. This is good news for our punishingly overburdened volunteer army, which needs all the smart, ambitious strivers it can get.

This isn't really a partisan argument. It's more like Bush-McCain versus the world.

Webb's legislation passed with 75 votes. And last month, John Warner, the former Republican Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee joined in the criticism of McCain's argument:

“I think this argument that it’s going to hurt retention is very thin and tenuous, very thin and tenuous,” said the former chairman. “The flip side of that is, putting a big piece of cheese out there will induce more qualified people to join just to get this. It should be a tremendous incentive for recruitment.”