Progress Illinois

Peter Roskam says vets in his district know he supports them. If that's the case, why did he vote against the House version of the revamped G.I. Bill last month? The bill assists veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars that have served three years or more by covering the cost of four years at a state college and helping with housing and books. Speaking to NBC5's Mary Ann Ahern yesterday, Roskam said it was all a matter of dollars and cents:

“I’m a co-sponsor of underlying bill, but as with many things in Congress, you don’t get an up-and-down vote on simply that bill alone. So unfortunately, it was loaded up with a whole lot of other spending and it was loaded up with $51 billion dollars in new taxes. Nobody sent me to Washington D.C. to raise their taxes.”

Roskam left out a tiny detail about those "new taxes." To fund the 10-year benefit package, Democrats proposed a half-percent tax surcharge on individuals earning over $500,000 and couples earning over $1 million a year. But that wasn't good enough for the Illinois congressman, who was apparently more interested in protecting the economic interests of his district's wealthiest residents than the educational interests of the 1.6 million Iraq and Afghanistan veterans hoping to better their lives at home.