Senate Republicans kill veterans jobs bill despite their rhetoric

In what should be characterized as a national disgrace, Republicans in the U.S. Senate killed a bill Wednesday to provide jobs and job training for veterans. All Democrats voted yes; all Republicans voted no except for 5 who crossed party lines to vote for passage. Two Republicans were not present for the vote. Even though 58 Senators voted yes, Senate rules require 60 votes to move a bill forward, so the bill fell 2 votes short.

The stated Republican argument for kicking the men and women who risked their lives for our country was that the bill “was not paid for.” The real reason is that Republicans do not want to put veterans or anyone else to back to work because it might give President Obama a win. So veterans suffer for the sake of Republican politics. Senate Republican Leader McConnell said defeating Obama is their number one priority.

The five Republicans who put country above party to vote for veterans were: Scott Brown (R-MA), Susan Collins (R-ME), Dean Heller (R-NV), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), and Olympia Snowe (R-ME).

Senator Scott Brown and Dean Heller are in very tight re-election races and did not want to be seen as being anti-veteran. Senator Snowe is not running for re-election.

The bill S-3457 also called the Veterans Job Corps would have provided funding to hire veterans for job as police officers, fire fighters, and positions in the federal government. It also provided money for all states to do job training to help veterans find jobs in private industry, and it set up veteran assistance centers in many cities to help veterans with résumés, job placement, and provide other assistance.