To understand just one aspect of the human cost of sequestration, consider the U.S. service members hunkered down at the American base in Kandahar, Afghanistan. In between missions to help the Afghan military defeat the Taliban, these service members are studying for college degrees under a Department of Defense program.
Soldiers take great pride in their education. Last May an enemy rocket attack that sent them scurrying to bunkers did not interrupt a graduation ceremony for long. The graduates grasped their mortarboards in one hand and their rifles in the other.
Completing their education is important to them and important for their careers.
Yet under the sequestration plan, money to educate these service members may be indiscriminately slashed along with everything else.
Each year, active duty members of the U.S. Military, National Guard and Reserves take more than 850,000 college classes while serving our nation.
Since the end of World War II, the federal government has recognized how essential advanced education has been to providing a strong defense. This has been especially true since the end of the military draft in 1973.
Our soldiers, airmen, Marines, sailors, and Guardsmen know how important educational benefits are. It is one of the reasons they enlist and risk their lives for their nation.
Sequestration, as it is now planned, would be a double hit for our country's military. Not only would it cut billions from the Defense Department's budget that would undermine readiness and training and require longer tours of duty overseas, it also could curtail the benefits promised our service personnel under the Military Tuition Assistance program.
Looking for ways to maintain training and readiness in the face of mandated cuts, the Pentagon could eliminate the education program entirely.
Now is not the time to do that. No matter what happens with sequestration, the military will be downsized in coming years. That means an increasing number of veterans will return to civilian life looking for jobs. And while the number has declined in recent months, veterans still have a higher unemployment rate than the general population. Nothing better predicts how successful veterans will be in finding work than their level of education and professional training.
It is true that the Veterans Administration is exempted from sequestration. Active military personnel can borrow from their VA education benefits while they still serve. But if they begin to draw down their VA benefits, what will be left when they separate or retire?
A cut is a cut.
The best way to ensure veteran employment, to keep veterans out of poverty, to reduce veteran crime, help veterans maintain their sense of self-worth and stem the rising number of veteran suicides is through education.
If we reduce or eliminate this opportunity, we are jeopardizing the single most important benefit -- besides health care -- that this country offers the military. It is self-defeating and it is morally wrong. Yet that is exactly what this sequester could do.
The indiscriminate nature of sequestration may take the decision out of the hands of military leadership no matter how much they personally understand the tremendous value of the education benefit.
Congress knew this when it imposed sequestration as a way to force itself to make difficult budget decisions. Sequestration is a sledgehammer so powerful that Congress would surely act reasonably before it fell.
But here we are. And one of the casualties of this indiscriminate act might be an essential part of maintaining a strong military with a high morale.
It is time to act reasonably.
Say cutting back the cost per SH a little for troops who decide to continue to take classes paying out of their pocket.
Is there a need to charge the max allowed under TA?
Cut the cost back $100 per SH for troops paying out of pocket.
With a 15 trillion dollar National Debt, unfunded Medicare liabilities into the 30-50 billion range what the leaders SHOULD be doing is to commit to a full press court of our Congressional Leaders to further reduce the National Debt--instead of continuing past practices of selling off the country for which we pay the Chinese and others hundreds of billions in interest on the National Debt.
But, as soon as there is news of sequestered monies "Let the letter writing begin". Unfortunately, even for the leaders what worked in the past will not work any longer. Because the "old" economy of good times will never return. The defense budget will decrease and Government will need to decrease.
If it does not---within 3-5 years you will see another financial meltdown that will make 2009 look like a child's first birthday party.
I have taught online for UMUC for several years where many students have been military learners. I am not from a military family or background. Recently I took a UMUC training class where I learned 55% of UMUC students are military learners. My only contact with military sponsored education is that I know my father and uncle came from a dirt poor Southern Arkansas background. Through the miracle of the G.I. Bill my father became a successful lawyer/politician while my uncle stayed in the military with a high position in Army intelligence. They were the first family members to attend college. My uncle always seemed to be one of the last Americans to leave countries I would hear about on the news. My uncle learned to speak seven languages through military colleges.
Students may not only be earning degrees to better their own lives. They intend to change the lives possible for their children so they have options beyond what in my case would have been the Arkansas oil fields. I am a college professor, my sister was a manager at a brokerage firm, my brother is a senior adviser for the governor of Arkansas, and my other brother is a logistics manager. This is all because one person received assistance from the military for his tuition. I could list my cousins' accomplishments as well but my point has been made.
but was told to reverse it:
http://marinecorpstimes.com/news/2011/10/military-...
The interesting point here is that the TA funds were running out by late 2012. Look, leaders have known about sequestration for at least a year now and could have budgeted themselves more appropriately. Smells like a clever way of unburdening themselves from an unpopular program while inciting a reaction about sequestration.
Hey, where have you been? I've missed your comments. Hope all is well! Mojo(Lisa)
Sir, as a proud alum of UMUC (BS, 2005), I applaud your efforts to keep our veterans in educational programs. That degree was a stepping stone for me to get where I am today.
However, two dissenting points.
First, while educating today's veterans is incredibly important, so too is giving our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines the tools they need to keep themselves trained for the fights of tomorrow. And in many eyes, bullets for training our troops today may be more important than paying for a book of a serviceman.
Second, they're not borrowing out of their VA benefits. They are using their VA benefits. There's no paying back these benefits once utilized.
Why not be honest and disclose the fact that if TA is cut, UMUC's overseas operations in Europe and Asia are going to be devastated. UMUC is the primary and often only source of in-classroom education geared towards the award of Associates and Baccalaureate degrees for service people stationed overseas. This might tinge your objectivity and possibly prompt you to speak up on this topic in hopes of protecting your bottom line as well as the jobs of the hardworking professors and support staff in those theaters. I can appreciate your concerns for our Americans in service to their country, but ultimately there is a reason why we students long ago decided UMUC should really stand for "U Must Use Cash."
you really think that cutting ta is going to give us more money to train? think again bro. they are cutting more and more stuff everyday where i am at. This program is what got alot of guys in my unit to reenlist and try and finish there degree before they got out and went on to us the gi bill.
The was at one time a Jr College that offered Masters Degree programs to members of the Military who were in Germany. Do you suppose this institution made no money pn this?
What president in their right mind would have his minions design a bill with even the smallest chance of something coming to fruition (like the sequester) that they do NOT want to happen, and then spend millions going around the country with his hair-on-fire denouncing it? And I thought that our so-called representatives in congress were the losers. The longer this president stays in office, the better Nixon and Carter look.