Veterans’ Jobs Bill Blocked
Yesterday we celebrated the anniversary of the end of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. Unfortunately, just Wednesday, in the face of amazing progress, Senate Republicans took a step backwards and voted against a bill that would have created a $1 billion jobs program for our veterans—a program that would have potentially put thousands of veterans in Ohio and across the country back to work.
By refusing to budge on a bill that would provide assistance to those who spend their lives protecting us, Senate Republicans showed where their priorities truly lie: not with progress, but with obstruction politics. No veteran who serves overseas should have to worry about finding a job when he or she returns home, and this bill would have provided job security for up to 20,000 of the almost 720,000 unemployed veterans nationwide.
I voted for the bill, and I’m proud to have also helped create the Veterans Retraining Assistance Program (VRAP)—a program that provides up to 12 months of job training and assistance to participating veterans. Even in an election year, I believe we can and should reach an agreement to provide our veterans with job support when they return home. We owe it to them, and it’s something I’ll never stop fighting for.
– Senator Sherrod Brown
