By Jim Belshaw
Of the Journal
I hadn't considered sunglasses. They were never on my economic stimulus radar. Then out of the blue, there they were in all their glorious newspaper serendipity.
So now I'm thinking of using my economic stimulus tax rebate check to spend a few hundred bucks on a pair of Gucci shades.
For the good of the country, of course.
In the Saturday edition of the newspaper you hold in your very hands, there appeared side by side two headlines:
"Thieves Target High-End Sunglasses"
"Tax Rebates Begin on Monday."
Sunglasses and economic stimulus checks. It just hadn't occurred to me.
It seems there's been a wave of thefts of high-end sunglasses, shades that cost hundreds of dollars a pair, a concept foreign to my fashion sense, such as it is.
The idea of paying $300 for a pair of sunglasses ... well, I just can't get there.
Besides, a friend sent an essay he read that reminded me there's a better way to stimulate the economy.
The essay's subject was a long-ago government program, the kind of thing the righteously indignant among us like to call a "guv'mint giveaway."
It was described like this: "A free college education at any school that will accept the student— Cal State, Harvard, the Sorbonne— courtesy of Uncle Sam. A monthly stipend and textbooks ... "
This is the kind of thing that would give talk radio talkers a week's worth of paroxysms without breaking a sweat.
At the moment, they can rest easy. We have no such government boondoggle.
But back in the day, such a thing did exist. It was called the GI Bill, and it changed the face of America.
It produced "three presidents, dozens of congressmen, 14 Nobel Prize winners, giants of literature, Broadway and Hollywood and hundreds of thousands of teachers, doctors, nurses and businessmen ..."
It sent millions of veterans to college, changing lives forever.
The writer of the essay suggested that paying for a college education was the least we could do for today's veterans.
Sure it is. But we don't do it.
Veterans' educational benefits today don't come close to paying for a college education, which would lead to better jobs, which would stimulate the economy.
And wouldn't you know it, two Vietnam veterans in the Senate have created a new GI Bill that will do the job.
James Webb of Virginia and Chuck Hagel of Nebraska have introduced legislation that will pay for a veteran's education— all of it.
Webb is a former conservative Republican who became a conservative Democrat. Hagel is a conservative Republican.
Both are highly decorated combat veterans of the Vietnam war.
A bipartisan group of 56 senators and 200 representatives have signed on to support this new GI Bill.
But there are two notable exceptions.
John McCain.
And the Pentagon.
The Pentagon worries that, if educational benefits are too attractive, it will hurt retention rates, an interesting management theory that seems to say: If we don't treat them too well, maybe they'll re-up.
McCain, who says he's working on his own GI Bill language, apparently agrees.
Webb, a former Marine, comes at the question the way Marines do, in a straight line.
"That's absurd," he said.
He argues that paying for a veteran's college education is a "cost of war."
Of course, it is.
I think it's what we call "Support the Troops," except that it's more meaningful than a magnetized ribbon on the trunk of a car or a pair of $300 Gucci shades that probably won't do all that much for you anyway.
Write to Jim Belshaw at The Albuquerque Journal, P.O. Drawer J, Albuquerque, NM 87103; telephone— 823-3930; e-mail— jbelshaw@abqjournal.com.
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