U.S. House passes WWII merchant mariners compensation bill

U.S. House passes WWII merchant mariners compensation bill The U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation Monday that would provide $1,000 per month tax-free payments to the surviving 10,000 Merchant Marine veterans of World War II.
   Despite the passage of the bill, which still faces a turn in the Senate, the Bush administration and some veterans groups are concerned over the bill they believe will cost taxpayers close to $500 million over the next five years.
   The merchant marines, who transported goods to every corner of the world during the war, experienced the highest casualty rate — one in 26 mariners died in the line of duty — of any branch of the armed forces. Merchant mariners are civilians except during times of war when, under a 1936 law, they are considered military personnel. In 1986, legislation officially made all merchant mariners who served in wartime military veterans. Upwards of 9,300 of the 215,000 merchant mariners who served in World War II died during the conflict.
   “They’re not veterans,” Dennis Cullinan, legislative director for the Veterans of Foreign Wars told the Merced Sun-Star on Monday. “We have real heartburn with the idea that we’re going to given them this $1,000 a month gratuity ' it’s not equitable.”
   Following WWII, the men of the U.S. Merchant Marine did not receive any of the generous veterans' benefits offered to others that served. These denied benefits included education and loan provisions under the G.I. Bill of Rights, benefits that mariners assert can not be recouped today.
   “It’s a group of people who helped us win the war, and were never given any of the benefits from that,” Rep. Bob Filner, D-Chula Vista, and chair of the House Veterans Affairs Committee told the Sun-Star.
   Despite broad bipartisan support for the new House bill, the administration is not entirely pleased with the benefits. Department of Veterans Affairs official Bradley Mayes testified earlier this year that the $1,000 monthly payout to merchant mariners would amount to a “special privilege that is not available to other veterans.”
   Critics have also raised concerns about the $485 million cost of the bill, despite it actually representing less than 0.35 percent of the 2007 federal budget for the Veteran Affairs Department.
   “We do ' have serious concerns about the cost of this bill and how it would impair (the Department of Veterans Affairs’) ability to provide the benefits it already manages,” Kimo Hollingsworth, national legislative director of American Veterans, testified to the U.S. House earlier this year.