>>>Still, I have to confess to a bias in favor of finding ways to uplift groups that are struggling to find a place in our culture, however devious the motives of those pols might be.
>>>
>>>Making these people dependent on the government is not a good way to uplift them.
>>
>>Marcia, I know you're speaking from ethical conviction but you insult a lot of people who have taken advantage of government assistance to better themselves, including my brother and myself and hundreds of thousands of GI's who took advantage of the GI bill.
>>
>>The taxes that we've paid have repaid the government for its investment hundreds of thousands of times.
>>
>>My brother, who is to the right of you and Kevin politically, would be "interested" to learn that he's dependent on the government.
>
>The GI Bill was earned assistance by serving in the military.... entirely different than the current government dole...(the earning part has been eliminated).


While I don't agree, I'm sure there were some who argued that GIs had been paid for their service and didn't deserve more. FWIW, Congress wasn't able to pass such a bill after WWI and benefits for veterans became a really big political issue.

Also, checking this out, I learned that the GI Bill was not originally applied equally to black veterans. From the Wikipedia page on the GI BIll:

"Of the 67,000 mortgages insured by the G.I. Bill, fewer than 100 were taken out by non-whites.[18]

By 1946, only one fifth of the 100,000 blacks who had applied for educational benefits had registered in college.[19] Furthermore, historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) came under increased pressure as rising enrollments and strained resources forced them to turn away an estimated 20,000 veterans. HBCUs were already the poorest colleges and served, to most whites, only to keep blacks out of white colleges. HBCU resources were stretched even thinner when veterans’ demands necessitated a shift in the curriculum away from the traditional "preach and teach" course of study offered by the HBCUs.[20]

The United States Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), because of its strong affiliation to the all-white[21] American Legion and VFW (Veterans of Foreign Wars), also became a formidable foe to many blacks in search of an education because it had the power to deny or grant the claims of black G.I.s. Additionally, banks and mortgage agencies refused loans to blacks, making the G.I. Bill even less effective for blacks.[20]"

I wonder how many of the black families that ended up on government assistance in the 50's, 60's and later included WWII veterans who hadn't gotten their fair share of GI Bill benefits.

Tamar