Senator Johnson is the Chair of the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee. In this position he has been instrumental in achieving a record high appropriation for the VA of $43 billion for 2008. Under his leadership, this year Veterans healthcare was fully funded for the first time in decades. While those funding levels will help a lot of veterans, Tim does not believe that funding for our Veteran’s programs should be held hostage to the political process, and that is why he is pushing for full and mandatory VA funding.
Senator Johnson has also been an outspoken supporter of expanding education benefits for today’s generation of veterans by restoring the promise of the original GI Bill. The original GI Bill was created following World War II and provided a fully funded education to millions of veterans. In so doing, it showed our nation’s appreciation to a deserving generation of servicemen and women and revitalized our nation’s economy. Today, the costs of higher education dwarf the benefit given to our nation’s brave men and women under a revised peacetime version of the GI Bill. Senator Johnson believes today’s generation of Post 9-11 veterans, those who have served so bravely in the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and other places, deserve the same education benefit of those who came before them. That’s why he is a strong supporter of legislation to restore the promise of the original GI Bill by providing a fully funded education to our nation’s veterans.
