Exile at Rochesterturning notes that Randy Kuhl is touting a "clean" version of the new GI Bill, and wonders if Kuhl really thinks that nobody will notice his earlier opposition to the real GI Bill. There's little chance of that, because there's no antidote to Kuhl's position on this issue.
Kuhl has allied himself with a narrow majority of the Republican House that opposes Senator Jim Webb's version of the GI Bill. The original version of Webb's bill has 300 co-sponsors in the House. The latest version passed in the Senate last week by a 75-22 vote.
Kuhl has not explained his vote against the GI Bill, so one has to assume that he agrees with Senators John McCain and Lindsay Graham, who have offered a less generous version of Webb's bill. McCain and Graham's position is that Webb's GI Bill, which allows full benefits after three years of service, will hurt recruiting. After three years, a soldier has probably served two full tours in Iraq, but that's not enough for McCain, Bush and Kuhl -- their shared vision of a long-term US presence in Iraq requires a penurious GI Bill that gives soldiers an incentive for multiple re-enlistments.
Kuhl's present vote on the Iraq supplemental, and his vote against an amendment adding the new GI Bill to that supplemental, make stuff like his most recent blog post sound like so much hot air. He talks of troops "working tirelessly to protect and defend our rights", but he's allied with an administration that begrudges them a .5% extra pay raise. A good number of his Republican colleagues have abandoned Bush on this one, and so have some conservatives, but Randy's chosen to stay the course.
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It says that Randy signed on to the Webb bill as a cosponsor on April 9, 2008, and the amendment to the Defense bill was NOT the same as the Webb bill as it contained other things besides just a GI Bill so that makes me think he is a supporter.
He did co-sponsor the original Webb bill but then voted against it when it was added to HR 2642 as an amendment. Here's what happened, according to the Library of Congress. The roll where Kuhl voted against it is here.