Jobs Programs for Veterans

Obama has called for a (pretty low-level) jobs program that would essentially provide preferential hiring for veterans through tax breaks for businesses.

Normally I am opposed to the fetishization of the military. No, just because you are in the military does not make you a hero. But I could actually deal with this kind of talk if it wasn’t a bunch of conservative hot air. Because like Republicans who only care about babies in the theoretical wombs of women’s (probably sluts) bodies but oppose any program to actually make the lives of mothers and babies better, they care about the military as a construct, but are often indifferent to how actual soldiers live and die.

This ranges from making soldiers buy their own uniforms to not providing them with proper equipment to slashing the VA budget to not providing them psychological care to allowing them to leave the military with no prospects of employment.

Creating a jobs program around soldiers makes sense in a number of ways. Like any government stimulus package, it is going to create spin-off jobs that will help the overall economy. Were Obama to expand this and make it a central part of his economic package, it could be a jobs program packaged in a politically expedient way. It is also really bad that these people come out of the military with no training on what to do after. And a lot of unemployed veterans is really bad for national stability.

I’ve argued for a long time that the Democrats should recast themselves as the pro-veteran party that centers the actual experience of veterans. This as opposed to the Republicans who are the pro-military party. This program could be a good step in that direction.