VA Loan Updates

INTERVIEW. In his office, Paul Rieckhoff has a photo of his old Army platoon from just days before it was deployed to Iraq in the spring of 2003.

“My unit is probably a good test case,” said Rieckhoff, who now runs the advocacy organization Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. He was the platoon’s commander. “Thankfully all 38 came home alive. A couple of them are back over there.”

He singled out the determined faces. “This guy - Donaldson - is there for a third time,” Rieckhoff said. “This guy became an officer. About a quarter of my guys got divorced. Some are in college. One committed suicide a couple of months after he got back. That’s part of what drove me to start this group.”

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ANOTHER VIEW OF EDUCATIONAL CRISIS, AND A FIX

THE GRIM NEWS of the city’s high dropout rate (45 percent) and low numbers of people with college degrees (18 percent) is even grimmer considering we’re seeing a similar troubling trend in the military.

The National Priorities Project, a research group that analyzes federal data, found that only 71 percent of Army recruits had earned regular high-school diplomas, about 20 percentage points away from its target of 90 percent.

This has far-reaching implications on the battlefields and the homefront, but there is one silver lining: Congress can use it to spur positive action by adapting a 21st-century version of the G.I. Bill.

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In his 2008 State of the Union address, President Bush is expected to focus heavily on the state of the sluggish economy and how to stimulate it, now and beyond. But as Washington wrangles over how best to do this, our leaders have largely overlooked a proven strategy for growth that promises more than immediate relief: a new GI Bill.

When President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed the original GI Bill in 1944, he ensured that eight million World War II veterans would be able to afford an education. The GI Bill gave many of our nation’s leaders their start, including Presidents Gerald Ford, George H.W. Bush, and former Senators Bob Dole, George McGovern, and Pat Moynihan, to name just a few. Additionally, the GI Bill educated 14 Nobel Prize winners and two dozen Pulitzer Prize winners, including authors Joseph Heller, Norman Mailer, and Frank McCourt.

Aside from furthering the education of many veterans, the GI Bill reinvented America after a half-decade of war, and helped to prevent a looming economic crisis. The government’s investment in the GI Bill resulted in higher national productivity, consumer spending, and tax revenue. More impressively, every dollar spent on educational benefits for the Greatest Generation added seven dollars to the national economy.

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Buying a home now may be an option for more Ohio veterans. A temporary exemption allows veterans who may have owned a home in the past three years to qualify under the Ohio Housing Finance Agency’s (OHFA) First-Time Homebuyer Program.

Traditionally, borrowers qualify for the program by: being a first-time homebuyer, not owning their principle residence for at least three years, or purchasing a home in a targeted area.

“We are proud to offer this extended flexibility and the opportunity for homeownership to veterans who have served our country,” said Doug Garver, Executive Director for the Agency. “This exception allows us to further our mission of opening the doors to an affordable place to call home for even more Ohioans.”

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Grand Rapids - With the problems in the housing market around the country, foreclosures are on the rise. That includes some homes financed with loans through the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. But, one activist organization doesn’t think the VA is properly managing those properties.

The Department of Veterans Affairs guarantees some home loans for veterans and members of the military. But if a veteran’s home is foreclosed, the VA is left with the house.

The VA contracts with a private company to manage and sell those houses. A report by the non-partisan Government Accountability Office, or GAO, is critical of how the company manages the properties.

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A retired soldier who encountered a paperwork foul-up when he tried to get his GI Bill benefits has learned he will receive those benefits - without having to produce an obscure document from 21 years ago.

“We have resolved the issue,” said Department of Veterans Affairs spokesman Steve Westerfeld, noting that the Defense Manpower Data Center has confirmed that retired Army Sgt. 1st Class Jim Kimmel is eligible for Montgomery GI Bill benefits.

When VA officials told him last November that it would be late February or March before the problem would be resolved, Kimmell said, he realized he couldn’t afford to go to school “just hoping they’ll get it ironed out some day.” By the time the problem was resolved, it was too late for him to start the latest semester.

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A bill that would block the Department of Veterans Affairs from trying to collect money from the estates of service members who die in combat was introduced Tuesday by Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas.

Her bill, S 2536, applies only to debts to the VA, and not to money owed to private-sector creditors or other federal agencies, such as the Internal Revenue Service.

Hutchison is asking Senate leaders for quick passage of the bill, hoping to bypass the normal process in which new bills are sent to committee for consideration.

She could get high-level support. VA Secretary Dr. James Peake is expected to write a letter to the Senate endorsing her call for expedited passage of the bill, according to Senate sources.

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There is a resolution currently being considered in the American Legion, District 8, Department of New Hampshire that urges the New Hampshire Legislature and the University of New Hampshire system to provide, and fully fund, scholarships for today’s Operation Enduring Freedom/Operation Iraqi Freedom (OEF/OIF) warriors who fought in Afghanistan and Iraq, respectively.

Due in part to corporate-bought Congress and its specious dogmatic opprobrium and apathy to providing a 21st century GI Bill, which could correct the disparities to National Guard benefits, among other things, this scholarship benefit is past its time for us to provide. The charge is, rightfully or otherwise, left to the states to rectify this tragic injustice.

The GI Bill of our fathers and grandfathers had, by some quantitative estimates, a six-to-eight fold return for the investment. Qualitatively, the positive results were, no doubt, exponential if not immeasurable. Not a bad investment of public funds.

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Many a high school history student has learned about the G.I. Bill and the positive effect it had on the nation’s economy following World War II.

The G.I. Bill provided for college or vocational education for returning veterans as well as one year of unemployment compensation. It also provided loans for returning vets to buy homes and start businesses.

Today, troops and veterans across the United States are still benefiting from the measure that was passed as part of President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal in 1944.

Branson native Kory Klein is one of them.

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The 10-year time limit on GI benefits needs to be lifted, as more and more veterans can’t go back to school immediately after leaving the service, a Washington lawmaker said Thursday.

Many veterans face lengthy recovery from war wounds or family obligations, Rep. Rick Larsen, D-Lake Stevens, said.

“Veterans should not be limited to an arbitrary timeline that prevents them from getting the education and job training they need when they need it,” Larsen told a House Veterans Affairs subcommittee in prepared testimony.

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