Congressman: Putting veterans' specialized skills to use is common sense
Washington, D.C. - Rep. Bruce Braley (IA-01) today continued his fight to create a Veterans' Job Corps, reintroducing legislation that would put unemployed veterans back to work using skills they developed in the military?in such roles as improving our national parks, serving as police officers and firefighters and working in local communities.
"Unemployment levels for veterans remains higher than the national average, and the Veterans' Jobs Corps is an opportunity to level the playing field for those that have sacrificed so much for our country," Braley said. "Many of our veterans have highly valued skills that could be put to good use with minimal training?it's commonsense that we should pursue every opportunity to do that."
The Veterans' Jobs Corps Act would allow the executive branch to create the program as a cooperative project between federal agencies. Members of the jobs corps could be employed to improve public lands and national parks, prevent forest fires, work in public safety jobs and control floods. Participation in the corps would be open to veterans and widows of veterans.
Braley previously co-hosted a series of bipartisan field hearings on veterans' unemployment. Braley also successfully fought for a pair of tax credits that give businesses incentives to hire unemployed veterans.
A link to the bill can be found HERE.
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