David Lerman writes about Senator Webb's new proposed legislation in his dailypress.com article:

Virginia Sen. Jim Webb introduced legislation Monday to give federal employees four weeks of paid leave for the birth or adoption of a child.

Under the Family and Medical Leave Act passed during the Clinton administration, federal workers can take up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave, but many cannot afford to forgo their pay to take time off.

"The legislation we introduced today is an issue of fairness for the working family," said Webb, a freshman Democrat.

"Paid parental leave will improve recruitment and retention for federal agencies."
Most Fortune 100 companies provide an average of six to eight weeks of paid parental leave, he said.

Virginia is home to more than 100,000 federal workers. Nationwide, there are an estimated 2.7 million federal employees.

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The United States Senate has approved Jim Webb's new GI Bill:

The U.S. Senate today approved Sen. Jim Webb's GI Bill, giving troops returing from war a free college education.

The 75-22 vote was a symbolic victory for the freshman Democratic senator from Virginia, who had made the GI Bill a centpiece of his 2006 election campaign. But the victory might be short-lived, because the measure is attached to an Iraq War spending bill that President Bush has threatened to veto in its current form.

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Bob Herbert writes about Senator Webb's new GI Bill in his New York Times column:

At the top of the list of no-brainers in Washington should be Senator Jim Webb’s proposed expansion of education benefits for the men and women who have served in the armed forces since Sept. 11, 2001.

It’s awfully hard to make the case that these young people who have sacrificed so much don’t deserve a shot at a better future once their wartime service has ended.

[...]

“These veterans were able to get a first-class future,” Senator Webb told me in an interview. “But not only that. For every dollar that was spent on the World War II G.I. bill, seven dollars came back in the form of tax remunerations from those who received benefits.”

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More coverage of Senator Webb's new GI Bill legislation, as the Chicago Tribune examines the numbers involved in the bill:

Under the proposal by Webb, D-Va., and Hagel, R-Neb., benefits for qualified veterans could potentially increase to the cost of the most expensive in-state public school in their home state and include a housing stipend.

The program would cost an additional $2 billion per year compared to the current GI Bill, which backers have noted is a small sum relative to the more than $600 billion that has already been allocated for the war. In addition, veterans would have up to 15 years after leaving active duty to use the entitlement, up from 10 years under the current standard.

Despite President Bush again asking Congress on April 29 to send him a $108 billion war spending bill free of extraneous programs, Democratic leaders will likely include the proposal in the upcoming supplemental war spending bill, a senior Democratic aide said.

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