Posted on 03/25/2009 7:14:26 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Senators moved Wednesday toward creation of a “Veterans Corps” of up to 5,000 paid volunteers to work on aid programs for vets, their families and the families of active-duty troops.
The corps is part of a group of national service initiatives backed by the Obama administration and an unusual bipartisan coalition in Congress. Participants would work directly with veterans and bolster existing aid programs run by state and local governments and non-profit groups.
With civilian jobs increasingly hard to come by, the corps would give people leaving the military another way of serving their country and staying off the unemployment line, said U.S. Sen. Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat.
Warner introduced legislation last week to create the corps, then lobbied to have it incorporated into a larger bill expanding the AmeriCorps service program, which was launched during the mid-1990s. His proposal is similar to a Veterans Corps plan approved by the House in its version of the national service bill.
In addition to Veterans Corps, the combined bills would create an education corps, a healthy futures corps, and a clean-energy service corps.
The legislation also would provide federal aid for colleges and universities that include service programs in their academic offerings in nursing, medicine, criminal justice, and public policy.
The combined bills, which would add 175,000 people to the AmeriCorps workforce over five years, would cost $5.7 billion over that period. The current legislation approves the program, but the money will have to come from a separate appropriations bill.
One opponent, Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Ok., complained Monday that the program is too expensive. “It’s not paid for… What are we going to eliminate?” he asked.
But the AmeriCorps idea enjoys the support of President Obama and a broad, bipartisan coalition led by liberal Democrat Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts and conservative Republican Orrin Hatch of Utah.
Warner said his interest in the Veterans Corps effort grows in part out of work he did as governor to streamline the state’s veterans’ service efforts. The Old Dominion ranks eighth among the states in veteran population, with just over 800,000 vets.
Like other jobs provided through AmeriCorps, Veterans Corps positions would carry a modest “living allowance” – exact amounts vary.
Warner acknowledged that could limit participation by vets who leave the service with growing families, an increasingly common occurrence in today’s military. Some of the jobs created would be in rural areas, where living costs often are relatively low, he added.
“and conservative Republican Orrin Hatch of Utah”
WHY would a single Republican support Obama’s totalitarian brigades? Don’t they have a clue what they are voting for?
What exactly is a "paid volunteer"?
This is just a ploy to get acceptance by the conservatives that teleprompter-boy doesn’t think are smart enough to notice it as a socialist project.
I’m from Utah. He makes a huge deal of being friends with the Democrats. Tries to upstage McCain in that regard. Has a special soft spot for Kennedy and any legislation proposed by him.
“He makes a huge deal of being friends with the Democrats”
Oh, lovely, another reach-across-the-aisle RINO. The GOP really needs to clean house!
I'm not. I don't care if my DD-214's say I was discharged 25 years or 25 days ago. I'll be gaddamned if I'm 'volunteering' to be a Gruppenführer in any korps this demi-Nazi is trying to hitch to his false illusion of Amerikan 'patriotism'. F*ck him and his Volks Korps.
“5,000 paid volunteers”
Volunteers get paid? Where do I apply for my back wages? I’ve volunteered since high school.
Ditto!
This Veteran’s Corps sounds like Mugabe’s land siezure thugs in Zimbawe. This scheme does not respect or benefit our veterans.
Part of his last campaign advertisement material included a CD of him singing songs he had composed.
I’m waiting for his Ode to Ted
What I meant was that it seems to help some returning vets. I’d never do it because the price is too high and there are almost assuredly all kinds of strings attached.
I never get past the ‘paid volunteer’ part. No wonder so many young people sit around refusing to do anything until they hear what’s in it for them.
If they’re eating beans and frijoles, I doubt if it’d be anywhere near “emmission-free” don’t you think?
Agreed! As much as I love vets (being one myself, and my oldest son as well)I utterly refuse to endorse or support ANY effort Der Fuhrer proposes.
I have no words for the disgust I feel whenever Zero opens his stinking mouth!
Maybe a process could be found to collect this gas and use it as a fuel.
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