{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["http://foster.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/audio-foster-veterans-advocates-discuss-gi-education-benefits-fairness", "AUDIO: Foster, Veterans Advocates Discuss GI Education Benefits Fairness Act", "2013-11-25", "2013", "2013-11", "Democrat", "House", "IL", "Bill Foster", "F000454", "foster.house.gov", null, null, "legacy", "Washington, DC \u2014 Today Congressman Bill Foster and veterans advocates held a press conference call to discuss the GI Education Benefits Fairness Act, bipartisan legislation to support military families by extending GI education benefits to the wards and foster children of our soldiers.\nRep. Foster introduced the legislation Friday, along with Republican Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers (WA-05).\nAudio of the call is available here.\nMore information on the legislation is available here.\nRep. Foster was joined on the call by Sergeant First Class Angela Dees.\u00a0 Dees, a Joliet native, is a training developer for the US Army Aviation School at Fort Eustis in Virginia.\u00a0\nThe idea for the legislation came when Angela contacted Rep. Foster\u2019s office after her son Christopher Webb, a legal ward, was approved for GI benefits, then later told they would be revoked.\u00a0\n\u201cChildren of the men and women who serve honorably shouldn\u2019t be denied the benefits they were promised because of a bureaucratic oversight,\u201d said Foster.\u00a0 \u201cThese servicemen and women have honored the promise they made to serve our country, we need to honor the promises we make to them.\u201d\n\u201cAll I can do is hope that Congress will see what an injustice this is to these poor kids, support Congressman Foster\u2019s bill and take action to fix it. This is not Christopher\u2019s fault or any of the other kids in this situation.\u00a0 He trusted me, and I trusted that he would be taken care of,\u201d said Dees.\n\u201cI had straight As, I graduated third in my class and I had no other funding available \u2013 I didn\u2019t think that I would need it.\u00a0 So for that to be taken away after I was already in school is heartbreaking.\u00a0 I think this legislation is very important, not only to me, but to hundreds of other kids that have been or will be affected,\u201d said Webb.\u00a0\n\u201cWe know that the GI Bill and the ability to transfer those benefits has been so important to so many military families, and did not want families such as Sergeant First Class Dees to be left out of that important benefit.\u00a0 We recognize that military families take all shapes and sizes and that all military kids need and deserve a quality education, and that includes a college education.\u00a0 We are very much in favor of the ability of service members who have done so much for their country to be able to transfer those valuable benefits to their spouses and to their kids,\u201d said Eileen Huck, National Military Family Association.\n\u201cOn behalf of MOAA (Military Officers Association of America), I would like to express our support for Representative Foster\u2019s bipartisan bill, the GI Education Benefits Fairness Act\u2026 Representative Foster\u2019s bill would fix the discrepancy between the DOD\u2019s definition of a child and the VA\u2019s definition of a child, which we believe is a fair and reasonable solution to this erroneous oversight in the law,\u201d said Karen Golden, Military Officers Association of America.\n\u201cI am glad that this bill has come forward with bipartisan support and is essentially a no-brainer in fixing this part of the law,\u201d said Jacob Zimmerman, Superintendent, Kane County Veterans Assistance Commission.", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["http://foster.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/audio-foster-veterans-advocates-discuss-gi-education-benefits-fairness"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.7536608502268791, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}