Boy, you can't get any more slam dunk poll findings than this. The Campaign for a New GI Bill released a new poll yesterday that shows that the American public overwhelmingly supports a new GI Bill.
Among the findings:
81% of Americans say that veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan are not getting enough support in transitioning back to civilian life.
91% of Americans support providing these veterans with a funded college education for their service.
While 85% of Americans believe that the original GI Bill of 1944 was fair to returning World War II veterans, 67% say that the current GI Bill is not fair and 3 out of 4 say that it doesn’t do enough for veterans.
More than 8 of 10 Americans support a comprehensive 21st Century GI Bill.
91% of Americans agree that the government should make good on its promise to help veterans get a college education and that we should reward current heroes like we rewarded those in the past
83% of Americans believe that a new 21st Century GI Bill will benefit America. (94% of Americans say that the original GI Bill was a good idea, and 91% believe it benefited America).
(PDF of poll report can be found here).
It makes you wonder just what in the heck Congress could even be debating here. The House is due to consider it tomorrow, the Senate just after that.
Of course, Senator McCain has a bill of his own which doesn't even come close to what the bipartisan Webb-Hagel bill offers. Perhaps seeing that basically no one is on his side, Politico reports that McCain is trying to create a "compromise" with Webb.
A compromise? On what basis? That 9 percent of people think the government shouldn't uphold its promise to veterans?
The Webb-Hagel bill already is a carefully crafted compromise, designed in such a way that it won the support of a majority of the Senate, which now cosponsors the bill. McCain had every chance to get on that bill very early - even make it a cornerstone of his legislative record going into an election year. But he didn't. Now, that train has left the station, and McCain thinks the train should back up, redesign one of the cars to his liking, and let him get on?
Get real.
The Webb-Hagel bill is wildly popular, the overwhelming majority of Americans support it, reports the Campaign for a New GI Bill. There's no compromise there.