(MOTHER JONES) — As if to underscore Mitt Romney’s indifference to the 47 percent, his Republican Party colleagues in the US Senate used a procedural vote Wednesday to block a $1 billion bipartisan bill that would have given tens of thousands of jobless military vets the opportunity to work.
Inspired by President Obama’s State of the Union Address challenge to get veterans working, the Veterans Job Corps bill would have created a program to fast-track 20,000 former service members into federal jobs as law enforcement officers, first responders, and parks workers. The legislation “was one of the few pieces of legislation [to] make it through Congress, which has been mired in partisan gridlock for the last two years,” reports Stars & Stripes’ Leo Shane. A few enthusiastic Republicans even added several provisions to the bill, including measures to increase internet access for job-seeking vets and to aid them in their transitions from military life. “Once it incorporated ideas from both sides of the aisle, I thought it would be an easy sell,” Tom Tarantino, a war vets’ lobbyist, told the Washington Post Wednesday.
