Yesterday IAVA Founder and CEO took to the Hill to testify before Congress at the joint hearing of the House and Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committees. Speaking on behalf of IAVA’s 425,000 members, Rieckhoff outlined our four key priorities: continuing to combat veteran suicide; fully recognizing and improving services for female vets; reforming and modernizing the VA; and defending the Post-9/11 GI Bill.

Today’s Task & Purpose highlights the risk to the Post-9/11 GI Bill, which since 2009 has been utilized by more than one million vets and their families:

In February 2016, despite strong opposition from IAVA, the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee successfully pushed the Veterans Employment, Education, and Healthcare Improvement Act through the House. The bill, HR 3016, includes a provision that would cut the monthly housing stipend for the dependents of veterans attending school on the Post-9/11 GI Bill in half. The cuts “were necessary to offset, or pay for, other aspects of the bill,” a committee spokesman told the Military Times.

“It’s a slippery slope,” Porter said. “Once you start cutting into the Post-9/11 GI Bill, once you break this piggy bank open, it’s going to be harder and harder to put it back together again. It’s such a significant benefit. They’re going to keep coming back for it.”

Today IAVA is launching a campaign to #DefendTheGIBill. Join us here to learn more about this and make your voice heard to tell Congress you won’t allow the GI Bill to become their piggy bank.