Good afternoon.

Madam Chair, thank you for brining us together today to continue our oversight of VA’s progress towards implementing the new GI Bill.  Before we begin, I would like to introduce our side of the aisle by welcoming back Congressman Jerry Moran from the first district of Kansas.  Jerry is in his seventh term and is a long-time member of the Veterans Affairs Committee.  I am also very pleased to welcome a new member of the subcommittee, Congressman Gus Bilirakis of the ninth district of Florida.  Gus continues a family tradition of service on the Veterans Affairs Committee.  Madam Chair, I am also delighted to have him as well as our new members on the Democratic side join us as we seek to improve the lives of our veterans.

Since the subcommittee last met on this subject, we have continued to meet with education and IT staff from VA and SPAWAR as well as Senate Veterans Affairs Committee staff.  I appreciate their work to stay current on the progress towards meeting the August 1, 2009 implementation date for the Post 9-11 GI Bill.

As a result of the continuing oversight, I think it is fair to say that getting the new GI Bill up and running is proving to be a far more complex task than anyone thought.  The permutations of amounts paid to the schools is almost infinite.  I would note that VA has posted its first compilation of the maximum tuitions and fees for each state and I am truly surprised by some of the numbers.  For example, in Tennessee, the maximum fees that could be charged to an undergraduate student is over $15,000 per semester.  There are several other states where fees exceed $10,000 per semester.

I understand VA is reviewing those numbers and is taking a second look at how the State Approving Agencies are calculating and reporting the costs to be covered. I must remind everyone that those are state school, not Ivy League prices.  But if those numbers hold true, we need to have a conversation with the higher education industry.  At a time when American families are struggling just to keep the mortgage paid, the pursuit of higher education by everyone, not just veterans, may become problematic with those kinds of prices.  I take some small consolation that at least those who serve the nation will have this very generous benefit to fall back on but just as we are concerned about the rising cost of medical care placing an enormous burden on a family’s budget, we must also insist that schools do everything they can to keep costs down.

Madame Chair, I cannot ignore the fact that during the last Congress, you introduced and I cosponsored HR 5684 – the Veterans Education Improvement Act of 2008, a GI Bill that built on the success of the Montgomery GI Bill and offered all veterans about $19,500 per school year without all the complexity of the Post 9-11 benefit.    It is a shame that despite our best bipartisan efforts to provide a simple-yet-generous benefit, HR 5684 did not make it to the floor despite unanimous approval by the full committee. It could have been up and running right now and we could be spending our time overseeing and improving programs like Voc Rehab, HVRP and TAP.  I would also note that one of the main proponents of the new program, the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America have reversed their position and now advocate for a fixed benefit amount as proposed in HR 5684.

Finally, I ask today’s witnesses to be candid in their testimony.  I know VA and SPAWAR staffs are working hard to meet the August date as well as the long-term IT solution, but we cannot allow a lack of forthright discussion to prevent getting the program up and running.  In that vein, I for one am not here to point any fingers for missteps – they are bound to happen.  But I will expect full disclosure when those problems arise.