President to declare war on vet unemployment
Stars & Stripes reports that the President will outline a plan to combat veteran unemployment over the next several months during a speech this morning at the Washington Navy Yard in DC today. The program will improve transition services for troops leaving the military and incentives for employers.
White House officials said his speech will also include proposals for tax cuts for companies that hire young veterans and a public challenge to civilian companies to hire 100,000 former servicemembers over the next 16 months.
According to Department of Labor statistics, the unemployment rate for post-Sept. 11 veterans in June hit 13.3 percent, well above the national rate of 9.2 percent. A senior White House official called the figures unacceptable, and said that “those veterans who have sacrificed for their country … deserve all the support we can give them.”
While I applaud the administration’s efforts to help veterans, I’ve seen this before. They hire a bunch of school-educated doofuses who wouldn’t know a rifle from a bayonet to tell soldiers how to adapt to civilian life when these counselors can’t even relate to troops’ experiences.
The government needs to hire combat veterans to run these programs, folks who’ve been in boots and then transitioned to civilian lives. It’s the same solution for lowering the suicide rate among veterans.
They come back from the defining moment of their lives to discover that they can’t relate to events swirling around them, and combat veterans discover that the most important thing that ever happened to them means nothing to anyone outside their homes. They need someone who went before them and dealt with the same feelings and walked in their boots before them.
Category: Barack Obama/Joe Biden, Veterans Issues
If it’s anything like his “laser-like focus on jobs” we’ve heard before, those guys are screwed.
Oh, and TAX BREAKS? Really? Who knew cutting taxes would provide incentive for companies to hire people? (smacks forehead)
Here, here Jonn….they could start by hiring you to help these guys but then again, that might actually make sense….
I guess hiring veterans to help train other vets would just make too much sense.
You know Sparky that’s a pretty good point. If you admit that lowering taxes helps people find jobs or hire, why on earth would you even consider raising them in a recession.
I am going to make this brief because I am at work helping veterans find jobs. This “new” intiitive will most likely be run through the Department of Labor’s Veterans Employment and Training Service (DOL/VETS). http://www.dol.gov/vets A quick look at the bios shows that the majority, if not all of the senior staff are veterans.
At the field level (where I work) there are two types of veteran consultants, Local Veteran Employment representatives (LVER) and Disabled Veterans Occupational Sepecialts (DVOPS). Preference is given to disabled veterans with diability ratings of 30% or higher, disabled veterans, campaign badge veterans and finally qualified civillians. It is extremely rare to find a non-veteran as a DVOP or LVER. Each state is required to have DVOPS and LVERs working in the state employment agencies. We are trained in Denver and receive sustainment training in our states.
The tax incentives already exist. However, to qualify, recently discharged veterans must collect uneployment for at least 4 weeks. I hope that this requirment can be tweaked. I would also like to see additional training opportunities for veterans.
We may not all like the Gov’ment, but a lot of the things you guys want done are already happening.
I’ve got a client, so fire awy, I will answer questions or respond to comments when I can.
Doc A
This is another bullshit ploy to act as if Chicago Jesus actually likes or cares about our military. He has shown often enough that he does not.
WA state’s military department actually has a pretty good program for finding jobs and training for returning vets. It’s primarily geared toward the state’s NG soldiers, but also for those getting off active duty and dependents.
How about the sensible thing, (Yes, that is asking a lot of a politician.), and give companies tax breaks for hiring anyone? Do that and Veterans will find their own job, of better quality than the damned gummint can do by setting them apart.
Frank: I disagree. There are a variety of tax incentives that apply to large groups of people. Leveling the playing field gives employers a reason to exclude groups rather than including our vets.
Sig, I like to think that NC has a pretty good program too. A lot of the difficulty lies with supervisory personnel outside of the VETS (OR VES in my state) program not understanding the laws and what we are actually supposed to be doing.
NY already has the same or similar program…all this sounds like is blowing smoke for political points to me in an election year. there are already Vet reps at the NYS Div of labor office that are supposed to match vets and employers and tax incentives. Eventually I got told they could not send me VET only applicants and I said I thought thats what the Federal Govt was funding you to do…downhill from there. But that was then….for Viet Nam era vets. Guy told me I could not just hire Vets. After that I just looked for vets and they got preference. The incentives were not worth the trouble.
All I ever hear about from the VA employment people is come work for the government. Occasionally there will be a referal to a civilian job fair but that is about it.
As to the suicide rate, you get back and see a shrink. The shrink has no real combat experience, thus has idea where the soldier is coming from.
Then if you are out of the service, you are usually not in a position to talk to the only people who truly understand, at least not on a regular basis or when you really need to talk (or all your friends may be dead and you are the last one living).
None of this is something you can talk to your wife or civilain buddy or a shrink who “knows what you are going through” because he was in command of a medical platoon in the Gulf War. Caring is not enough to help the soldier/vet through these problems. One needs to understand through experience.
I don’t have the answer, but it starts with combat vets not shrinks. Get a committee of vets together. Ones who have spent their tour outside the wire, who were injured, or eho lost people (don’t know how would prove the last one). Have this committee amde of Guard/Reserve/Regular service members and a few shrinks to help guide them on the treatemnt porcedures.
“Stars & Stripes reports that the President will outline a plan to combat veteran unemployment over the next several months during a speech this morning at the Washington Navy Yard in DC today. The program will improve transition services for troops leaving the military and incentives for employers.”
This after the threat put out if the Republicans didn’t make a deal that active duty and veterans just might not get their checks.
CYA
Two points:
Companies and corporations pay no taxes: they are the middleman for consumers to pay the taxes for them. Offering a corporation a tax break doesn’t necessarily translate into savings for the consumer.
Every time the POTUS comes out in favor of something, anything, that thing fails miserably. Whether its NCAA basketball or macroeconomics, the attention of the POTUS is the Kiss of Death. I expect to see more vets unemployed than at any time in our history.