Senator Tom Coburn led the GOP charge against America’s fighting men and women as 40 senators voted to block the Veterans Jobs Corps Act.
The bill would have established a $1 billion dollar jobs program designed to put unemployed post 9/11 veterans back to work as firefighters and police officers and in public works projects in a bi-partisan bill whose costs were fully offset according to Democrats and veterans groups.
According to the Guardian UK, Patty Murray, the chair person of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, accused Republicans of “shocking and shameful” obstructionist politics:
“At a time when one in four young veterans are unemployed, Republicans should have been able, for just this once, to put aside the politics of obstruction and to help these men and women provide for their families.
It’s unbelievable that even after more than a decade of war many Republicans still will not acknowledge that the treatment of our veterans is a cost of war. Today they voted down a fully paid-for bill that included bipartisan ideas to put veterans in jobs that will allow them to serve their communities. Jobs that would have helped provide veterans with the self-esteem that is so critical to their successful transition home.”
You can watch Jon Stewart’s take on this Senate failure below.
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