Protecting Volunteer Firefighters and Emergency Responders Act -- Continued

Floor Speech

Mr. CARPER. I thank the Senator from Illinois for yielding.

Madam President, I don't know about your family, but my dad and his
brother served in World War II. They were both combat veterans, one in
the Navy and one in the Army. On my mom's side of the family, two of
her brothers ended up serving in the Navy. One was killed in a kamikaze
attack on an aircraft carrier out in the Pacific. He never had a chance
to participate in the GI bill, but my dad did. Later, in the Korean
war, my uncle Ed, who married my mom's sister, had a chance to
participate in the GI bill. It was a great benefit. It is one of the
things--when we look back in time, we know this is one of the wonderful
things that happened in our country. It helped lift us up and prepare a
workforce to make us a preeminent nation in the second half of the 20th
century.

But as it turned out, as the benefits were offered and taken
advantage of by veterans, scam artists emerged on the heels of World
War II. The same thing happened again after the Korean war. It seems as
if every time we have renewed and extended the GI bill for a new
generation of veterans, the same thing has happened.

I served on Active Duty from 1968 to 1973 in the Vietnam war--as a
naval flight officer--served 5 years on Active and another 18 years
beyond that as a P-3 aircraft mission commander, a retired Navy
captain. I had a chance to get a master's degree near the end of the
Vietnam war, and I moved from California to Delaware and got an MBA on
the GI bill. I think we got $250 a month.

The GI bill today--men and women who have served 3 years of Active
Duty, including some time in Iraq or Afghanistan, get tuition free to
pretty much any college or university--public--in their State. They get
tuition assistance. They not only get tuition, they get book fees, and
if they need tutoring, they get that free. They also get about a
$1,500-a-month housing allowance. Vietnam veterans got 250 bucks a
month. This is a lucrative GI benefit. And if the GI doesn't use it
today, their spouse can use it. If their spouse doesn't use it, it is
transferrable to their dependent children. It is a great benefit.

Not surprisingly, just as scam artists emerged at the end of World
War II, at the end of the Korean war, and at other times, they have
emerged again this time as well. Some of them are private colleges;
some of them are not. Some of the private colleges actually do a good
job, but too many of them do not. They are in this for money. They see
a rich benefit, and one of their goals is to try to make sure they cash
in. In some cases, it is at the expense of the veteran and the
taxpayers.

Congress put in place in I want to say 1992 a rule that said we want
to combat this by injecting some market forces. So since the beginning
of 1992, no university, college, whatever, could get more than 85
percent of their revenues from the Federal Government--no more than 85
percent from the Federal Government. We changed that in 1998 and said
that no college or university--private, for profit, whatever--could get
more than 90 percent of their revenues from the Federal Government.
They had to raise 10 percent from other sources, such as people who
paid their own money or who got private loans or whatever to go to
college.

Somewhere along the line, though, we changed the rules to say that 90
percent did not include the GI bill, that 90 percent did not include
something called tuition assistance for people on Active Duty. So 90
percent today is not a full picture. It is student loans and it is Pell
grants. It is not the GI bill. It is not tuition assistance from people
on Active Duty. So if we put it all together, we find out that today
there are over 100 colleges and universities--again, almost all
private--that are getting way more than 90 percent of their revenue
from the Federal Government. I don't think that is a good thing. It is
not a healthy thing. What was meant to be an approach that provided
some market correction doesn't work anymore.

For years, Senator Durbin and I have introduced legislation designed
to restore the integrity of the original 85-15
rule or the 90-10 rule, which says, look, if you are a college or
university, if you are a for-profit, private, public, the 90 percent
should be included all in. It is college loans, it is student loans, it
is Pell grants, it is the GI bill, it is tuition assistance--the whole
deal. If you are a college or university, you can get up to 90 percent
of your revenues from those sources but not 100 percent--as too many of
them are doing today.

We have talked about Corinthian, which has gone down. Corinthian has
cost taxpayers probably billions of dollars. A lot of men and women who
risked their lives and served our country in sometimes very dangerous
situations have now gotten out of the military and they have literally
been put at risk again. They have been put in a position where they
have squandered their GI bill benefits.

We ask sometimes why there is bad morale in some cases, low morale,
why some Veterans take their own lives. Well, sometimes it is because
they get sucked into these scams. Sometimes that is what happens.

We can fix this. It is the right thing to do for our veterans. It is
the right thing to do for our taxpayers.

I know Senator Blumenthal is here. He is also a distinguished veteran
and the father of a distinguished veteran, and I am happy to yield to
him.

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Mr. CARPER. If I can add just one thing, Mr. President, 5 years ago,
6 years ago, our Federal budget deficit hit $1.4 trillion. It has come
down since, bit by bit. Now it is down by about two-thirds. But it is
still a lot--like $400 billion or so. That is a lot of money.

I think the key to further reducing deficits is threefold: No. 1, tax
reform that broadens the base and lowers the corporate rates so we are
competitive with the rest of the world but also generates some revenues
for deficit reduction.

No. 2, entitlement reform that saves money and saves programs for our
children and grandchildren and doesn't savage old people or poor
people.

No. 3, look at everything we do in the Federal Government and say:
How do we get a better result with less money? This is one of those
things we need to look at and put under a microscope.

Again, are all for-profit schools bad? No, they are not all bad. Some
do a very good job. But we have millions of jobs out here in this
country waiting to be filled. We have a lot of people who would like to
have a job and don't have the skills. We are spending a ton of money
through the GI bill and tuition assistance, and we need to better
ensure that the folks--particularly who are veterans--are getting their
money's worth and that we are getting our money's worth and that we are
getting the workforce we need to fill up those millions of jobs.

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