On the day before Veteran’s Day, The Senate overwhelmingly approved a provision of President Barack Obama’s Job Act that gives companies tax credits for hiring unemployed military veterans – a proposal which had rare bipartisan appeal.
A month ago, President Obama’s job’s plan was killed the second it hit the congressional floor, but as promised, he began sending portions of the bill up to Congress in hopes of getting them enacted separately, but until yesterday Republicans voted unanimously to knock them down as well. But Thursday, Republicans joined Democrats in passing this bill with only one dissenting vote, that belonging to Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) explaining that the amendment only created loopholes that benefited veterans over regular citizens for jobs (WTF?!).
President Obama urged lawmakers to “pass additional jobs proposals in the weeks ahead to help the millions of other Americans who are still looking for work.” After weeks of publicly campaigning against Republicans for failing to act on portions of his $447 billion jobs bill, President Obama said Thursday they “did the right thing.”
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY.) said the bill offered a welcomed opportunity to break the gridlock on the Senate. “We’re going to legislate,” he said, before predictably ranking on Democrats for not advancing more jobs ideas Republicans could back.
The 94-1 vote for the legislation came as the jobless rate among Iraq and Afghanistan vets are in the double digits. The bill awards companies a $5,600 tax credit for each veteran they hired who had been unemployed for at least six months and $2,400 for hiring a veteran who has been out of work a month.
On his jobs plan stump, Obama has emphasized that taking care of our Veterans is not a Democratic or Republican issue, it is an American responsibility.
Big Up! for our military women and men and President Obama’s bill.
