Now, I have sympathy with the argument that it breaks previously agreed upon budget limits; I also have sympathy with the comment that we don't know how well other veteran jobs bills are working. I even agree with a view not made in the article - why should we focus just on jobs for veterans? there are a lot of unemployed people in the country and one could argue veterans are more skilled than many and should need less help.
But - where is the opposing bill from the Repubs? Where is their bill to study the effectiveness of the other jobs programs? Where is their bill offering a veterans jobs bill and funding it by - oh, a tax on rich people or a cut in subsidies to the oil companies or by cutting defense spending on another tank or plane?
Just saying no isn't enough; they need to offer an alternative.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-57517160/(AP) WASHINGTON - Senate Republicans blocked legislation Wednesday that would have established a $1 billion jobs program putting veterans back to work tending to the country's federal lands and bolstering local police and fire departments.
Republicans said the spending authorized in the bill violated limits that Congress agreed to last year. Democrats fell two votes shy of the 60-vote majority needed to waive the objection, forcing the legislation back to committee.
Supporters loosely modeled their proposal after the President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Civilian Conservation Corps used during the Great Depression to put people to work planting trees, building parks and constructing dams. They said the latest monthly jobs report, showing a nearly 11 percent unemployment rate for veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, merited action from Congress.
Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma said the federal government already has six job-training programs for veterans and there is no way to know how well they are working. He argued that making progress on the country's debt was the best way to help veterans in the long-term.
And re Coburn's comment about making progress on the debt - we've done that. It's a lot lower than it was. So that should no longer be our number one issue.
