Rachel Maddow Wishes Sen. Jim DeMint a Happy Veterans Day Following His 'No' Vote on Jobs Bill for Vets
Rachel Maddow wished Sen. Jim DeMint a "happy" Veterans Day after his lone vote against the VOW to Hire Heroes Act which passed the Senate 94-1 with DeMint being the lone dissenting vote.
DeMint explains his veterans 'no' vote:
Sen. Jim DeMint knew that casting the lone vote against a veterans jobs bill wasn’t going to make him very popular – especially just a day before Veterans Day. But then again, the South Carolina tea-party Republican has never really cared about winning the popularity contest.
Nevertheless, he went to great length to explain on the Senate floor Thursday why the legislation amounted to nothing more than politics, almost anticipating the attacks from Democrats who later circulated an email quoting DeMint saying veterans are just another “political group.”
“I’ll probably be accused of not supporting veterans by the politicians pandering for their votes. But, I am not going to be intimidated into voting for something that may make sense politically but is inherently unfair and isn’t going to work,” DeMint said before the vote. “It might sound like good politics, but it is not good policy.”
The veterans bill, passed by the Senate 94-1, would provide tax credits for firms that hire unemployed or disabled vets. But DeMint opposed the legislation, arguing that the tax breaks won’t encourage hiring, would complicate the tax code and amount to the government picking winners and losers.
At one point, he said, “We're pandering to different political groups with programs that have proven to be ineffective.”
As The Huffington Post reported, DeMint also had this to say about the bill -- Jim DeMint: Veterans Hiring Bill Is A Democratic 'Trick'.
Repeatedly.
“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.”
- Albert Einstein
Someday, they'll get it right...
"Parachutes are allowed in checked or carry-on baggage, but may not be worn in flight."
---Southwest Airlines
Can use it to practice shooting from downtown. Nothin' but net, baby,nothin'but net.
“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.”
- Albert Einstein
Yeah, unions don't work well for employees. Look at how poorly they work for sports stars, especially when compared to the non-union concessions workers and ticket takers.
I'm confused ..
When will government of the people, by the politicians, for the corporations perish from this Earth?
Not soon enough!
the only tax breaks he cares about are for the 1% that he's looking out for. Veterans and the other 99%... not so much. Why the Democrats can't try to field a serious candidate against this vulgar man is beyond me, but after the Alvin Greene debacle, we've got a lot of years to wait for that to finally happen, if ever.
He was for the veterans before he was against them.
GO. FUCK. YOURSELF.
You, your corporate handlers, and your brain-dead Teabagger constituents are a cancer on this country.
"Parachutes are allowed in checked or carry-on baggage, but may not be worn in flight."
---Southwest Airlines
To quote a Vet:
"Do republicans think that they can get us to vote for them based on this pittance when they screwed my brother the firefighter and my mother and two sisters who are teachers and nurses?.... And I am going back into the Construction business I left to defend this country! They are crazy as loons...I'm going straight to OWS!" and campaign against Coffman on that basis!
I am in Colorado,,,,,
Dememted is a disgraceful and disgusting---my words!
is not a whole lot better.
Ed-words
I'm a vet (that's me in a Blackhawk in Iraq for my profile pic) and believe we earned our benefits, but this pits us against other respectable working people and that's not what I want. You want to help a vet out? Boost our GI Bill. Give us a better percentage on our VA home loan. Haven't all these corporations already had enough tax breaks in the first place? Job creators my ass.
"Banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies." Thomas Jefferson
and words.
"Parachutes are allowed in checked or carry-on baggage, but may not be worn in flight."
---Southwest Airlines
Thank you for both your service, and also reminding people that the rest of us need jobs too.
My Dad did well most his life thanks to so strong a GI Bill that he didn't require an additional advantage in hiring.
That is no longer true.
Boosting the GI Bill should be done too, as well as getting the economy working again so that the jobs will be there to be had - job training is not very effective when nobody's hiring.
But what's missing when DeMint spins this bill as pitting vets against other unemployed groups is that the returning vets were government employees, and they are losing their jobs due to a change in government policy. Bringing home troops is good, but when you cause someone to lose a job through no fault of their own, you owe it to them to ease the transition back into the economy.
The cost of the vet benefits and tax credits to companies hiring returning vets is enormously less than the cost of the war, so all taxpayers still come out far ahead as compared to continued deployment. The vets deserve a higher share of those savings, because they are the only ones who served, and they are the only ones losing their jobs as a result of the change in policy.
Personally, I think the same principle should apply to private employment as well. If a corporation reduces its labor force or outsources jobs even when its profits are not falling, just to increase their bottom line and make their stock more attractive to investors, then they should owe assistance to the employees they let go. Maybe as well as a minimum wage, we should have a minimum severance package, adjustable by the company's profits. (If a company is laying off workers because the company is losing money, that's one thing. But if they're laying off American workers when their profits are high, it's putting corporate greed over human needs.)
"Be the change you want to see in the world" - Mahatma Gandhi
So he is right, you know... this is a type of legislation that targets one group of people for special and preferential treatment over all others. And it could be viewed, not entirely inaccurately, as pandering to a bloc of the electorate. That said, those 2 things alone do not make it bad legislation, necessarily. Sometimes, some groups do need special help. Though personally, I'd rather put the money towards effective psychological treatment and job retraining for vets rather than more tax break handouts to private business... but meh.
there you go making sense, talking about treating all citizens equally, what are you? some kind of commie?
you are definitely correct about money being better spent for vet benefits, i would qualify it as being better spent for combat veterans, as they are the ones most probably in need.
now, i don't know if people realize, you can be a lifer and never come near hostilities. one other thing here is, any first time enlistees should be coming out with college money.
but you are right about tax breaks for businesses, it's a sly strategy, but is actually a weakness on the part of the dims, people see though it.
Yeah, pander to vets and red meat types, then stealth pander to business interests with yet another corporate tax break. Slick.
But when it comes to actually showing gratitude and support for the hell our Vets go through they figure go wait in line behind banking interests.
What do you call subsidies for oil companies, farmers, dairy farmers? The Repubs keep saying that the government shouldn't be allowed to pick winners and losers as they did with the auto industry. Bullshit. Don't they pick winners and losers in the caseof the first 3 "winners" the Repubs picked? They want to be the onlty ones pick the winners. Hypocrites on all issues.
The good life is a day at the beach.
“We're pandering to different political groups with programs that have proven to be ineffective.”
Agree. That pretty much describes every GOP policy for the last 30 years.
Vote GOP and move forward to the 18th Century.
Nailed it!
Does the GI Bill "pander" to a special interest group?
Yep, and it should. Most deservedly so....
GI Bill was and is an effective policy.
Deregulation, privatization, supply side economic policy...not so much.
Vote GOP and move forward to the 18th Century.
So giving tax breaks to companies to hire vets is a bad idea, per Senator DeMint.
But, giving tax breaks to individuals and corporations, will put money in the hands of the job creators.
Huh?
AS IF the republicans aren't pandering to a political group. Like CORPORATE LOBBYISTS. Sorry Vets, can't cough up the PAY, you aren't entitled to PLAY.
SC sends a lot of young peole into the military meat grinder. If this gets enough media play, it should hurt Demint with the clowns who voted for him.
As I understand this bill, I disagree with it as well. Giving a company at tax credit for hiring a veteran over a non-vet may sound great at face value, but it's not right and won't create any jobs. I would rather thank them with free health care for life, free state college, no interest home loans and better pay while serving in an active war zone (ANY hostile conflict). This bill just rewards a corporation for putting a vet in a position they were going to fill anyway. Yes, the vet gets a job, but the corporation gets the money.
Being on the same side of an issue with a douchebag like Jim DeMint makes me feel wholly unclean, but I also have to disagree with this bill. With a seemingly positive impact for veterans on the line, I don't think it's wrong for one's initial reaction to want to go after DeMint with pitchforks and torches.
That said, I wholeheartedly agree with your reasoning. I'm just shocked that one of these corporate tools stood against what would essentially amount to yet another giveaway to the only constituents of any real importance to them.
Thier corporate benefactors only want tax breaks with no strings attached.
Preferential hiring for vets has been in place since the Vietnam era. Any vet applying for a government job always gets some points added to his score. I have a retired Navy friend and he got these points when he got a job at my local post office.
preferential treatment for clergymen.
Ed-words
Wonder why the Teabaggers hate our troops so much?
But, I am not going to
be intimidated into voting for something that maymake sense politicallybut is inherently unfair and isn’t going to work,” DeMint said before the vote.Do us a favor Jim. Get out of politics and into rehab to cure your raging case of narcisstic sociopathy.
"We will find fulfillment not in the goods that we have, but in the good we can do for each other."
Robert F. Kennedy
Anybody want to take South Carolina off our hands?
I'm willing to let them go for free.
If I were a psychopath, I would join the republican party, and get in on the gravy train taking the Teabircher morons to the cleaners.
Am I the only one who has been reading the media saying that the Bill passed 95-0? Are they covering up for DeMint?
is intended to be a factual statement
So tax cuts don't create jobs? What a fucking hypocrite asshole.
DeMint does his best Gollum impersonation: "Yes, they're tricksy, those Hobbitses. Must protect the 1%'ers, yes, my Precious".
So let's screw Vets to make a political point -- Your "tea party patriotism" at work.
Pfffftttt, that's the movie version. In the book DeMint was even a bigger twerp.
Bite my shiny metal ass.
http://www.startalkradio.net/
So now, according to DeMented, even TAX BREAKS aren't enough to create jobs? What do the mythical "job creators" need - hookers and blow?
I don't suppose this asshole has ever voted for anything for strictly "political" reasons. That couldn't pass the smell test anywhere. That pencil necked fool better never stand up on the Senate and sign the praises of our brave troops again or I will fill his email account so full, it will take months for them to sort through and. Will we ever see the south get over the civil war? They are still at war with mankind--north or south.
The good life is a day at the beach.
So what, Rachel disagrees with a-hole. It's democracy, it's good we don't have unanimous votes all the time. Perhaps our vet unemployment issue requires something a bit more serious than just throwing a little cash towards employers. It's like the same effort the politicians put towards America's extremely high internet access cost, which is the the highest among industrial nations. Maddow gives the appearance of approving of lazy political work. But, she's just a pundit, and not an investigative journalist. Perhaps she should give more time to journalists on serious issues.
The draftdoger will not support the troops, he must be the enemy, its the bush plan
Is the draftdoger a chickenhawk = conservative......will not support the troops.....he must be the enemy?
If so, i'll have to tell my dad that he's anti American. (he is tho, he thinks America is full of ****s) Can't blame him.
Bite my shiny metal ass.
http://www.startalkradio.net/
putz!
Why won't someone like Rachel et al ask Mitt Romey how he can run for president; send our men and women off to be killed and/or mutilated while he has 5 FIVE grown sons none of whom has ever served one day in the service of this country?
This COWARD couldn't serve and this COWARD can't stand with the VETERANS that made it possible for this ASS WIPE COWARD TO SUPPORT THE CORPORATIONS whose dicks he sucks regularly.
Now folks is the time to LOCK and LOAD, the ELECTIONS are coming, this SCUM BAG COWARD has to go.
The ELECTION machine is your GUN, the BALLOT is your BULLET, now remember those that gave their LIFE for YOU to be ABLE to VOTE, LOCK and LOAD and KILL this COWARDLY BASTARD in the BALLOT Box.
H. L. Mencken made the following statement about returning veterans in 1932 at the Bonus Army encampment, in Washington:
"In the sad aftermath that always follows a great war, there is nothing sadder than the surprise of the returned soldiers when they discover that they are generally regarded as public nuisances. And not to honest."
The following is a blog about DeMint, questioning whether he has the intelligence of a whale sh*t, it's found on the bottom of the deepest oceans or is truly a card-carrying golden yellow chickenhawk, with a backbone made of yellow grease!
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/09/15/1017...
Red Dawg
I served in the United States Marine Corps. I was wounded twice in combat. I was decorated with 2 purple hearts, a gold life saving medal, and a silver star. Why does America call every veteral a hero? Does anyone even know what that word means? I saw MANY of my friends die doing heroic deeds when they were blown apart. Now America campares someone who was a cook at a base in Tennessee to these men? This makes real duty to country seem like the action of a fool....
There's no doubt that this could help employ more Vets, but only because non-Vets will lose out on those jobs, and companies certainly aren't going to be motivated to hire additional employees because of this kick-back. In once sense DeMented is just sticking with his "affirmative action is always wrong" mantra, but in another, bigger and more moral sense, we've already admitted to ourselves that Vets deserve special treatment with all the programs already made available to them, so why kick up a fuss about this one? I'm sure the fact that so many Vets are minorities doesn't factor into the South Carolina Senators' thinking either....no, not even for one second.
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