40 Senators overrule 58 — Only in America!
It seems like it’d be an easy thing for senators to pass in an election year: a bill to help Veterans find jobs.
But no-o-o-o-o. Because…
40 senators filibustered the bill — a bill that had 58 votes in favor!
And those 40 senators who insisted that we just can’t afford to spend one billion measly dollars to help Veterans find employment here at home?
Yeah, you guessed it… The same ones who voted FOR two completely unfunded wars under Bush. (Wars which may end up costing 2 or 3 trillion — with a t — dollars.)
Oh and, by the way, we’re talking about the very same wars these Veterans just came home from.
Senators: That term you so blithely toss around, with your flag pinned firmly to your lapel — “Support the troops!” — Is that completely meaningless?
And what crazy system let’s 40 senators rule over 58, anyway?!
From the New York Times “The Caucus” blog:
Eager to shoot down President Obama’s legislative agenda just weeks before the election, Senate Republicans on Wednesday blocked a measure that would have provided $1 billion over five years to help veterans find work in their communities.
The measure, which would have potentially created jobs for up to 20,000 veterans, was blocked on a procedural point by Republicans, who argued that the bill was unpaid for…
“It’s both shocking and shameful that Republicans today chose to kill a bill to put America’s veterans back to work,” Ms. Murray [Senator Patty Murray, a Washington Democrat and the bill’s main sponsor] said in a statement.
“At a time when one in four young veterans are unemployed,” she said, “Republicans should have been able, for just this once, to put aside the politics of obstruction and to help these men and women provide for their families.”
She added that the vote was “stark reminder” that Mitch McConnell, Senate minority leader from Kentucky, and Senate Republicans “are willing to do absolutely anything to fulfill the pledge he made nearly two years ago to defeat President Obama. It doesn’t matter who gets in their way or which Americans they have to sacrifice in that pursuit, even if it’s our nation’s veterans.”
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