Saturday, September 22, 2012

S.3457 Veterans Jobs Corps Act = A Load of Crap

The Democrats are certainly trying to make a lot of political hay over the Republican defeat of S.3457 Veterans Job Corps Act of 2012.  They're especially livid over Sen Coburn calling it crap, but he's right.

The bill offers up one billion dollars over 5 years to make more government job positions specifically designed to keeping veterans as slaves to the state long after their oath of enlistment and last tour of duty is over.

First of all, the military is an all-volunteer force, and the primary recruitment selling points are to acquire education benefits and obtain much needed job skills which civilian employers desire through on-the-job training, both of which are regularly touted by recruiters to give veterans an advantage over many in the pool of job applicants when re-entering the civilian work force.  Indeed, many companies already give veterans some type of preference in the application process just due to their being "regimented" or at least indoctrinated in one of the most vital job skills there is, simply showing up for work on time.  Unless veterans only got to be veterans due to a court order to join up to avoid going to jail for petty criminal activity or got kicked out for bad or less than honorable conduct, most veterans make preferable employees.

Second, the main positions identified in section 2 of this bill are primarily in (1) conservation, resource management, and historic preservation projects on public lands and maintenance and improvement projects for cemetaries under the National Cemetery Administration and (2) first-responder firefighters and police officers.  Heaven knows we need more police officers.  Has Dunkin Donuts profits been lagging the general markets?  No, profits are up and they're selling lots of donuts.  Seriously though, we have over 800,000 full time state and local law enforcement officers on the streets or about 2.3 officers per 1000 population, and that's not counting federal officers in the FBI or Homeland Security.  That is what state and local taxes are for, hiring these type of public servants.  Again, the federal government offers to do what it does best, borrowing money it doesn't have to give to the states to make them more beholden to the national level government to keep the money flowing. 

Of course they give up to 5% of the loot to the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to administer the program and build some kind of on-line job search sites.  Let's see, that would be 50 million dollars.  Divide that by 250k which would be a reasonable annual cost of hiring a contract worker and then by the 5 years this program is scheduled to run and it would equal 40 more employees.

The bill also directs the Secretary of Labor to "commence a pilot program to assess the feasibility and advisability of providing veterans seeking employment with access to computing facilities to facilitate the access of such veterans to internet websites".  Just WTH is that? 

The Secretary of Labor is required to submit two reports.  One on the well defined pilot program in the above paragraph to teach these vets about monster.com or look for jobs on their local craigslist and another on the requirement that each State will receive sufficient funding for at least one disabled veterans' outreach program specialist and one local veterans' employment representative (per 5000 sq miles of service delivery area within the State) after one year "shall submit to Congress a report on the effect of the amendment made by subsection (a) on veterans who reside in highly rural areas."  Not to mention that the US has over 3.5 million square miles. Even with an allowance to exclude counties with population densities of less than one person per square mile, that adds up to a lot of people. Do they already exist in current code or is that a new mandate?

That's classic.  It reminds me of the old Sam Kinneson routine where he talks about his solution for solving world hunger.  Simply stop sending them food.  Instead send them U-Hauls and yell at them, "There wouldn't be world hunger if you people would live where the food is.  You live in a desert!!!  Nothing grows here!!!  So move to where the food is!!!"  The government already ships a vet's household goods to their home of record or just about anywhere he or she wants to live after enlistment is over, so funding U-Hauls to move them to where the jobs are wouldn't even be an expense they need to add.  Could this be part of this administration's answer to getting more people on the government dole by moving largely self-sufficient people in highly rural areas to more urban settings where they can't live off the land?  Hmmm...

There's lots more in there to laugh at, especially the amendments to the IRS code and another mandate for a pilot program to provide at off-base locations the Transition Assistance Program in no less than three and no more than five states to see if it's a worthwhile to expand the effort (anyone wanna bet that they will be in swing states?). 

So go take a look for yourself instead of listening to all the political rhetoric bantied about in the MSM.  It appears to me that this crap is nothing more than another election year stunt to spend more money for the benefit of a few people to gain some political good will while growing more government bureaucracy sort of like the House passing a new version of the Stolen Valor Act after SCOTUS shot down their other one as infringement on the 1st Amendment when we already have laws against using fraud for material gain. 

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