Veterans Jobs Corps Act of 2012--Motion to Proceed

Floor Speech

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Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, we just heard the Senator from Florida talk about the very important piece of legislation that is in front of us. I wish to thank him for being the lead on this and all the work he has put in it and the passion he has had to make sure our veterans in this Nation have what they need when they come home from these wars.

Last Friday we were again reminded of the difficult employment picture our Nation's veterans continue to face. In the monthly unemployment rate for August, we saw across the country there were 720,000 unemployed veterans. It is a number that includes over 225,000 post-9/11 veterans, many of them who have served multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan and have sacrificed time and again for our safety.

This should not be the case. Our veterans have what it takes to not only go out and find work but to excel in the workforce of the 21st century. In fact, the characteristics that our veterans have and exemplify read like the job qualifications you might find at any major company or small business, and that is because they have leadership ability, discipline, technical skills, team work, and the ability to perform under pressure--no question.

They have those skills because as a country we have invested in training them. We cannot and should not let that training or the millions of dollars we have invested in these men and women go to waste. In far too many instances, however, that is what is happening. Too often on the day our servicemembers are discharged, we as a nation pat them on the back, thank them for their service, but we do not give them a helping hand in the job market. That has to end.

The Senate has taken bipartisan action in the past to begin to change the way our veterans do transition from the battlefield to the job market. We were able to pass the VOW to Hire Heroes Act, which I coauthored. That was signed into law last year. Importantly, that law transforms the way we provide transition training to our servicemembers when they leave the military. It includes a provision that in my home State and across the country is providing thousands of dollars in tax credits to businesses to hire our vets.

In addition to that bill, we have also worked to build partnerships with the private sector in order to tap into the tremendous amount of good will that our companies have for our returning heroes. Sometimes this is as simple as working with a company to show them the easy steps that can help bring veterans on board, such as ensuring that they are advertising their job openings with local veterans service organizations and on their local military bases or having veterans in their own H.R. department with whom veterans can identify when they apply for work or having someone on staff who can help translate the experience of veterans into the work that company does.

Time and again, big companies such as Amazon and Microsoft or a lot of smaller businesses I have seen tell me these steps make an impact. But beyond those steps, it is very clear more needs to be done, particularly when the unemployment rate among young veterans who are ages 18 to 24 continues to hover around 20 percent. Action has to be taken because 20 percent is one in five of our veterans who cannot find a job to support their family; one in five of them who does not have an income to provide stability; one in five of them who does not have the work to provide them with the self-esteem and pride that is so critical to their transition home.

This a problem that manifests itself in homelessness, in broken families, and far too often in our veterans taking their own lives. It is a problem that neither the veterans themselves nor government alone can solve. But it is also one that we have to do everything we can to address.

Here in the Senate, that means a bipartisan, all-hands-on-deck strategy. That is exactly what the Senator from Florida is putting forward. Senator Nelson has put forward the veterans job corps bill. What this bill does is, over the next 5 years, it will increase training and hiring opportunities for all our veterans who are using successful job training programs in the country.

It is going to help hire qualified veterans as police officers and firefighters and first responders--by the way, at a time when 85 percent of law enforcement agencies had to reduce their budgets in the last year. It is going to help train and hire veterans to help restore and protect our national, State and tribal forests, our parks and our public lands--at a time, by the way, when we face a $10 billion maintenance backlog for our public lands. It is a backlog I have seen at home personally in my home State of Washington.

Because training and hiring our veterans has never been seen and never should be an effort that divides us along partisan lines, the veterans job corps bill takes good ideas from both sides of the aisle. In fact, our bill will provide veterans with access to the Internet and computers to help conduct job searches at one-stop centers and other locations. This is an idea championed by Senator Toomey. It is going to help guarantee that our rural and disabled veterans have access to veterans employment representatives. This is a bill that is championed by Senator Tester, who is presiding over the Senate this morning. It is a good idea. We put it in this bill.

It is going to increase transition assistance for eligible veterans and their spouses. That is a bill that was introduced by Senator Boozman of our committee.

It will require consideration of a veteran's training or experience gained while they are serving on Active Duty when they seek certifications and licenses. That is a bill that is cosponsored by Democrats and Republicans alike. This bill says all good ideas are welcome.

Our veterans need all the help they can get. It is fully paid for in a bipartisan way. It has been endorsed most recently by the National Association of Police Organizations. But there are also a lot of veterans service organizations that stand behind this bill as well. They do so because they know that helping veterans find employment is absolutely critical to meeting many of the challenges they face when they come home.

Our veterans do not ask for a lot. Oftentimes, they come home and do not even acknowledge their own sacrifice. My own father never talked about his time fighting in World War II. In fact, I never saw his Purple Heart or knew he had a wallet with shrapnel in it or a diary that detailed his time in combat until after he died and my family gathered to sort out his belongings.

But our veterans should not have to ask. We should know to provide for them. When my father's generation came home from the war, they came home to opportunity. My father came home to a community that supported him. He came home to college and a job. It was a job that gave him pride and a job that helped him start his family, and one that, of course, ultimately led me to starting my own. That is the legacy of opportunity this Senate, in a bipartisan way, has lived up to for today's veterans.

I urge our colleagues to build on the successes we have had in passing bipartisan veterans employment legislation. Veterans returning home from across the country are watching us. They certainly do not have time to let politics block their path to a job that will help them serve their community. Surely, this is a bill that is something we can show them that we can come together on no matter how close or far away we are from an election.

I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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