Senate Democrats Fight For Veterans' Employment
Wednesday, November 9, 2011 at 12:55PMSenate Democrats Wednesday championed a bill to put veterans back to work, as the veteran unemployment rate reached 12.1 percent in October.
“These men and women, who have served our country, literally put their lives on the line, endured many, many long periods of separation from their families in order to protect our country - but the problem right now is that these veterans have a higher unemployment rate than our civilian population,” Kagan said.
Because North Carolina has the third largest military footprint in the country, this is an especially pressing issue for Kagan’s constituents.
Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) echoed Kagan’s sentiments and touted veterans skills and qualification that could benefit employers.
“These are individuals that possess enormous capability - great skills, the ability to complete very difficult assignments under the most excruciating pressure,” Casey said during a conference call with reporters. “Also that they have a discipline and a work ethic and a focus that you can rarely find in a broad cross-section of workers.”
Over the next two days, the Senate will look at the component of President Obama’s “American Jobs Act” aimed at spurring veterans’ employment growth.
Such a bill will provide a tax credit of up to $5,600 for hiring veterans and up to $9,600 for hiring wounded warriors. The bill will also implement a transition assistance program that will facilitate workshops for veterans meant to emphasize their skills that can be taken into civilian life.
Attached to this bill is another bill that Kagan is supportive of that will repeal the requirement that federal, state and local governments withhold three percent of federal contracts to ensure no outstanding tax links will be associated with that contract.
“If you withhold three percent out of a small business contract with the federal government, that will definitely have a significant impact on the cash flow to the small businesses,” Kagan explained.
While Veteran’s Day is only two days away, Kagan expressed hope that this bill will be passed by a bipartisan vote in time for the holiday.
“As we pause to honor our veterans and reflect on their sacrifices - we will do that on Friday- but getting them back to work truly needs to be a priority 365 days a year,” Kagan concluded. “There isn’t one veteran who should be standing in an unemployment line and I am going to fight for their jobs and their families just like they fought fought for our family and our freedom.”
Saving The Environment Could Save You Cash And Maybe Your Job, Says Labor Secretary
A new rebate program for home retrofits proposed by the Obama administration could save homeowners hundreds of dollars a year and create new jobs, according to Labor Secretary Hilda Solis.
“The single act of retrofitting these home to make them more energy efficient is one of the fastest and easiest things that we can do to put Americans back to work while saving families money and reducing harmful emissions,” Solis said during a conference call with reporters Tuesday. “In short, this is a triple win. We are meeting the needs of workers, employers and home owners.”
Solis added that the administration will offer training programs to instruct workers in retrofitting. The secretary contended that the program is an important step in recovering the hard-hit construction industry.
The $6 billion program would be divided into two rebates, the gold and the silver star, which would be added to the current energy tax rebate program that was enacted under the Recovery Act, according to Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change Carol Browner.
The silver star program would issue a 50 precent rebate for point of sale purchases on energy saving equipment up to $1,000 and cap the credit amount to $3,000 per home. The gold star program would be an overall rebate of $3,000 on whole home energy retrofits.
Browning estimates that around 2-3 million homes would be affected and homeowners could stand to save around $200- $500 per year in energy costs.