Somewhat confused by this morning’s Seattle Times editorial, “Expand GI benefits,” I sat down to pick apart its arguments, only to find… there aren’t any. At least none that adequately defend a central part of their thesis.
Let the fisking begin.
A VASTLY improved and expanded package of GI educational benefits is caught in an unseemly standoff between Congress and the White House. Both manage to come off as penny-pinching ingrates.
I think it fair to conclude from the lede that the Times has two theses: 1) expanding GI educational benefits is a good thing (a sentiment with which I heartily agree); and 2) the “ingrates” in both Congress and the White House are equally to blame. Now let’s see how they go about defending their theses.
The benefits have not been updated for a generation, and the expense of the 10-year package is $52 billion — about five months of fighting the Iraq war.
Chalk that up as an adequate argument in defense of Thesis 1. I haven’t double-checked their facts, but throwing caution to the wind, we’ll just take them at their word this time.
The federal government is bleeding red ink, but a mix of Republicans and Democrats has suddenly gotten fussy about how the benefits are dealt with in the budget.
Really? Do tell.
President Bush threatens a veto because he objects to the benefit being included with his request for extra money for the war.
And the Democratic Congress?
Bush and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., claim re-enlistment rates would suffer if the maximum benefits were available after three years.
And the Democratic Congress?
The GOP presidential nominee wants those with more years of service to receive full benefits. Others counter the expanded benefits will boost enlistments.
And the Democratic Congress?
The Democratic Congress passed the new GI Bill, against the Republican objections, and now President Bush threatens to veto it. And this makes the current Congress a bunch of “penny-pinching ingrates,” how?
Congress and the White House have shameful records of providing for the welfare of the men and women in the U.S. armed forces.
True, but Congress has mostly been in the hands of Republicans for the past decade or so, so it seems kinda odd to blame Democratic members of this current Congress—you know, the Congress that just passed the expanded GI benefits the Times wants—for the admittedly “shameful record” of members who came before them, both Democrats and Republicans alike.
They were sent to war lightly equipped and have returned home wounded in body and spirit to often inadequate care.
Absolutely true, but I understand that as a defense of Thesis 1, not Thesis 2.
Our leaders ask extraordinary things of our all-volunteer military. Multiple overseas tours are routine, rotation cycles have been sped up, tours were extended to 15 months, and exhausted troops shuttle between Iraq and Afghanistan.
Again, a reasonable defense of Thesis 1.
Let the pragmatic at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue call the new GI educational benefits a cost of doing business.
Can’t argue with that. But it might useful, for the sake of argument, if the Times would bother to explain what was so unpragmatic about Congress passing the exact benefits their editorial demands?
For the rest of the nation, these overdue improvements represent both a humble thank you for sacrifices made and a measure of tribute for keeping a universal military draft at bay.
Turns out, they’re not so bad at explicating that Thesis 1 stuff after all. But I’m still waiting for a defense of Thesis 2.
Congress and the White House ask a lot of the military, but are only too willing to show their appreciation with rhetoric.
Um… and I hate to sound like a broken record here, but… Congress passed the GI Bill. How is that just rhetoric?
I think—and given the muddled nature of the editorial I’m not exactly sure—that the Times is criticizing Congress for attaching the GI Bill to a supplemental defense appropriations bill. That’s one of President Bush’s own complaints, though he objects to it because it makes the measure harder to veto. Standing on its own, the GI Bill wouldn’t have a snowball’s chance of a veto override, so it seems odd that the Times would object to such a pragmatic political maneuver at the same time it bemoans the lack of pragmatism “at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.”
I suppose the Times’ editors might have some other gripes about Congress and its Democratic leaders’ course of action on the GI Bill, but they haven’t bothered to voice them in this particular editorial. Likewise lacking is any constructive suggestion as to how Congress might overcome the White House’s objections, or move effectively forward in the face of a Presidential veto.
So why would the Times go out of its way to assign equal blame to Congress as an institution (and in such an unsupported manner), when it is clear that it is the White House and its Republican allies on Capitol Hill who threaten to block the GI Bill? Because it relieves them of the burden of calling out Rep. Dave Reichert, who voted against the GI Bill on the grounds that it levied a 0.47 percent tax surcharge on the portion of household income above $1 million a year.
Of course, my thesis is pure supposition, but as such it is at least as well supported as those of the Times.
