$1B jobs program for vets fails in Senate

WASHINGTON -- The Senate blocked legislation yesterday that would have established a $1 billion jobs program putting veterans back to work tending to the country's federal lands and bolstering local police and fire departments.

Republicans said the spending authorized in the bill violated limits that Congress agreed to last year. Democrats fell two votes shy of the 60-vote majority needed to waive the objection, forcing the legislation back to committee.

Supporters loosely modeled their proposal after the President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Civilian Conservation Corps used during the Great Depression to put people to work planting trees, building parks and constructing dams. They said the latest monthly jobs report, showing a nearly 11 percent unemployment rate for veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, merited action from Congress.

Democratic lawmakers turned to the legislation shortly before senators adjourn for the final weeks of this year's election campaigns. The bill had little chance of passing the House this Congress, but it still allowed senators to appeal to a key voting bloc.

With "a need so great as unemployed veterans, this is not the time to draw a technical line on the budget," said Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), the bill's lead sponsor, who faces a competitive re-election battle.

Republicans said the effort to help veterans was noble, but the bill was flawed.

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) said the federal government already has six job-training programs for veterans and there is no way to know how well they are working. He argued that making progress on the country's debt was the best way to help veterans in the long-term.

Democratic officials did not have an estimate for how many veterans would be hired as a result of the legislation. Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said much would depend upon the number of applicants. She noted that more than 720,000 veterans are unemployed across the nation, including 220,000 veterans who have served since Sept. 11, 2001. She said putting veterans back to work was the cost of war.