Sen. Amy Klobuchar introduces bipartisan legislation for military veterans
By Noah Caplan • Published: May. 1, 2023 at 11:21 PM EDT • Updated: 8 hours ago
ROCHESTER, Minn. (KTTC) – Eric Andringa is a retired Lieutenant Colonel. In his 28 years of service and 18 years of banking, he said he’s often noticed how his fellow service members struggle with finances.
“I’m a tanker and a banker,” Andringa said. “I worked with a lot of veterans, Vietnam veterans who had done damage to their credit score years ago and were just getting it back on track.”
Monday, in a bipartisan effort, Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar (DFL) and three other US Senators looked to help Andringa’s fellow veterans and many others by introducing the Servicemembers Credit Monitoring Enhancement Act.
“Deployment and frequent change of duty stations can make it harder for servicemembers to identify suspicious activity, report inaccuracies, and review credit reports,” Sen. Klobuchar said.
The bill’s purpose is to extend free credit monitoring to veterans of all military branches.
“It’s a good easy way for them to be able to make sure that, credit-wise, on the financial side of life, to help make things as easy as possible,” said VFW Post 1215 General Manager Michael Nelson said.
Nelson said this bill would especially benefit newer members of the military because he says they aren’t necessarily the most well-versed in managing their credit.
“It’s just a subject matter that is never really talked about or discussed a lot,” Nelson said. “You can very easily make a bad decision that can really affect the rest of your life.”
