Gateway Pundit is reporting that the Colorado Department of Higher Education is quietly trying to kill a bill that would provide money for tuition assistance for anyone who received a Purple Heart while in the service. From Rocky Mountain News:
The Colorado Department of Higher Education has quietly called on lobbyists for the University of Colorado system to persuade lawmakers to kill a bill that would grant free tuition to decorated combat veterans.
The bill, sponsored by Rep. Rafael Gallegos, D-Antonito, sailed through the House State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee on a 9-2 vote last week. But opponents say the state’s colleges and universities can’t afford it.
In an e-mail Monday to two dozen Capitol lobbyists, Cathy Wanstrath, a lobbyist for the Colorado Commission on Higher Education, laid out a plan to kill the measure when it is heard by the Appropriations Committee on Friday.
“I think you all agree we need to kill this bill, and (the Colorado Department of Higher Education) has been happy to take the lead,” according to the memo obtained Tuesday by the Rocky Mountain News. “However, we need your help in the next couple of days to count the votes to kill it in committee.”
Gallegos said that Wanstrath already had contacted him.
“I understand we’re talking about money here,” he said. “I have done my best to explain the benefits of this. We have an obligation to care for our veterans.”
Gallegos, an Air Force veteran, said he struggled to put himself through college at the University of Southern Colorado (now CSU- Pueblo) on the GI Bill when he was married with two children.
He said that some of the inspiration for his bill came from Christina Bybee, mother of Lance Cpl. John Doody, who grew up in Colorado and was shot in the right leg while serving as a Marine in Iraq two years ago. His injuries will prevent him from becoming a police officer, as he had dreamed. Now Doody wants to become a lawyer.
“Would you please create and pass a bill so John can realize his new dream,” Bybee wrote in an October e-mail to Gallegos. “He’s permanently disabled now from serving our country and is only asking to be educated so that he can do even more to benefit his fellow citizens.
“He doesn’t want to be taken care of by the government for the rest of his life . . . he wants to continue serving his country but in a new way.”
A touching story like that doesn’t tug on the heart strings of the garden variety liberal however, who have made their feelings about our veterans abundantly clear. Slapstick Politics is reporting that David Skaggs, who earlier in the year attempted to get tuition breaks for illegal immigrants, is trying his damnedest to get the bill killed.
I guess the left hasn’t learned the lesson of the Vietnam era Democrats. They’ll piss away their gains in this political season with pointless swipes at our returning vets.