WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Republicans blocked legislation Wednesday that would have established a $1 billion jobs program putting veterans to work tending federal lands and bolstering local police and fire departments.
Republicans said the spending authorized in the bill violated limits Congress agreed to last year. Democrats fell two votes shy of the 60 needed to waive the objection, forcing the bill back to committee.
Supporters loosely modeled their proposal after 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 for veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, merited action.
U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn, ROkla., said making progress on the debt was the best way to help veterans long-term.
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