The Anger Blog, Repubs Throw Veterans Under the Bus

Repubs Throw Veterans Under the Bus. Just when you think the Republicans in Washington can't anger us any more than they already have, they crawl out of the gutter and surprise us. The most recent and blatant obstructionist ploy was the killing of the Veterans Job Corps Bill in the United States Senate.

The bill, if passed, would have enabled veterans to receive job training and to be hired as policemen and firemen or to work on public lands and veterans' cemeteries, as well as in other jobs. Since we currently have 720,000 unemployed veterans in this country, the package that focused on jobs and job training was seen as a dire need and the right thing to do. The Democrats, however, having been ambushed in the past by the Republicans who said "We weren't asked for our input," did just that. They asked Senator Richard Burr (R-NC), the ranking Republican on the Veterans' Affairs Committee, and other GOP Senators to make or recommend changes to the bill, and they believed that this action would help ensure bipartisan support. These provisions (submitted by the Republicans) were included in the final bill … which was then defeated by the Republican minority in the Senate. Those voting against the bill included Senator Burr and the others who had added provisions that, assumedly, would have enabled the bill to pass.

If this victory by the minority in the U.S. Senate isn't enough to make you angry, consider this. The cost of carrying out the legislation outlined in the bill would have been one billion dollars. However, Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) objected, using a budget point of order to require 60 votes. The bill subsequently received 58 out of 100 votes, thereby failing to pass. Even though the one billion dollar expenditure required by the bill would have paid for itself in ten years, the Republicans now apparently feel the need to be 'more fiscally conservative.'

The whole game they played seems blatantly hypocritical, when these same members of the Senate supported the wars in Iraq and in Afghanistan without any provisions for paying for them. In fact, under the Bush administration, these wars were not even considered a debt! The costs for them were conveniently omitted from any reports on the national debt in those days. For these hypocrites, I guess it's okay to spend trillions on two wars, one (Iraq) of which was a huge GOP mistake, wherein thousands of our military are killed or wounded. But, when it comes to spending one billion dollars for jobs and training (for these same soldiers who are being sent, some, multiple deployments, to these same wars), the Republican lawmakers are more concerned about our nation's deficit.

The Repubs can make up any excuse they want, but the bottom line is they are using obstructionism to deny President Obama any 'legislative victory' in their attempt to defeat this administration, even when it hurts our patriotic veterans that they claim to support. Frankly, they make me sick to my stomach.

Related reading on this subject: Post-traumatic stress disorder treatment.