[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 172 (Thursday, November 10, 2011)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7326-S7328]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
VETERANS TAX CREDIT
Mr. DeMINT. Madam President, I want to speak for a few minutes about
the proposed veterans tax credit. I know what I am about to discuss
will not make me very popular. I will 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 it is not going to
work. The measure the Senate is now considering at President Obama's
urging is to offer tax credits to employers who hire unemployed
veterans. It might sound like good politics, but it is not good policy.
We have learned over the past few years since President Obama took
office that employers hire based on their long-term plans, not short-
term stimulus. It costs an employer about $63,000 a year to create an
average private sector job. A new tax credit for a couple thousand
dollars is simply not enough to increase employment. We have to
recognize the fact that businesses are not going to hire until the
government gets out of their way and creates a stable environment where
businesses can thrive.
Let's be clear: I want veterans to have work opportunities. Once a
man or woman has completed his or her service to our country, I hope
they are welcomed into the job market. But veterans are not hired
simply because they are veterans. By and large, they demonstrate
admirable qualities that are invaluable in the workforce, such as
selflessness, hard work, and dedication to improving oneself. Many
other Americans who are suffering in this same bad economy--such as
single moms, young graduates, and minorities--also demonstrate these
same commendable character traits. The best way to get our veterans
back to work is by doing what will help the economy and get all
Americans back to work. Sadly, this tax credit does not do that.
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The government has tried offering credits to hire particular
categories of people many times before. A Government Accountability
Office report studied the targeted jobs tax credit that was passed back
in 1978. The credit was intended to encourage companies to favor the
disadvantaged in hiring, but a followup study found that it was not
``effective or economical'' in helping the targeted group. The program
was eventually allowed to expire.
Unfortunately, that tax credit was quickly replaced with the welfare-
to-work and work opportunity tax credits in 1996. The Urban Institute-
Brookings Tax Policy Center studied these credits, which were intended
to help the needy, low-income veterans, inner-city youth, and ex-
felons. But it found that the credits had ``not had a meaningful effect
on employment rates among the disadvantaged.''
President Obama signed another law, the Hiring Incentives to Restore
Employment Act, in March of 2010 to give companies a tax credit to hire
unemployed workers. There is no evidence this encouraged employers to
hire, as unemployment has remained stubbornly high since President
Obama came into office, especially over the last year while this credit
was available.
Despite the overwhelming evidence that these tax credits do not
stimulate hiring for targeted groups, the Obama administration
continues to push Congress to pass another tax credit, this time
exclusively for veterans. By using a politically sensitive group the
day before Veterans Day, the Democrats are hoping they can trick
Republicans into further complicating the Tax Code, when we should be
doing everything possible to simplify it.
If we want to help veterans and all Americans, we need to get serious
about fixing our economy. There are almost 14 million unemployed
Americans and another 10 million underemployed and discouraged workers
who need work. We need a simpler tax code that businesses can navigate,
not a more complicated one, riddled with incentives for employers to
hire one particular group over another. The endless morass of tax
credits and loopholes is exactly what is wrong with our Tax Code. We
should also repeal ObamaCare and Dodd-Frank, which are proven job
killers. We will have a chance to vote on that later today. We need to
open more domestic energy resources.
The answers are right in front of our faces. But, instead, we are
pandering to different political groups with programs that have proven
to be ineffective. We are giving more false promises to Americans in
order to benefit political ends.
All Americans deserve the same opportunity to get hired. I cannot
support this tax credit because I do not believe the government should
privilege one American over another when it comes to work. I am deeply
thankful for the courageous and selfless service of our veterans. They
have performed for our country a service, and we will always be
indebted to them. Above all, I am thankful for their sacrifices to
protect freedom and equal opportunity in America. But we do not pay
them back for their service and sacrifice with false promises of
government programs that have been proven not to work.
Let's be honest with our veterans and with all Americans and do what
we need to do to fix this economy.
Thank you, Madam President. I yield back and suggest the absence of a
quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. COONS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. COONS. Madam President, I rise today, on the eve of Veterans Day,
to speak on behalf of those who have fought for our country only to
return home to find that their fight must continue, this time their
fight for a job, for employment. I rise today to offer my support on
the floor for the VOW to Hire Heroes Act, which I believe is now before
this body.
I am a cosponsor of this bill, because as a nation we must do more to
appreciate, to support the service of our returning heroes, and to help
them to fully recover from their service abroad by returning to
meaningful employment in the civilian sector.
We have not had as many servicemembers coming home from military
service abroad in a long time. Unfortunately, so many of them come home
to a bitterly slow recovery from the great recession. The employment
rate among all veterans from service in Iraq or Afghanistan is now 30
percent higher than the national unemployment rate. It is at roughly
12.1 percent. That means nearly a quarter million veterans who are
unemployed.
This bill is about equipping them, equipping them effectively to
return home to full employment. We have a tremendous asset in the
highly trained, highly skilled, highly motivated veterans we have
deployed overseas in the service of freedom and who are now returning
home seeking service in employment with America's businesses.
We are talking about men and women who are real leaders, tested
leaders who have learned something useful about managing people through
some of the most difficult situations imaginable, folks in whom we
invest hundreds of millions of dollars every year, year in and year
out, in training them and equipping them--billions of dollars in
equipping them to the highest service levels when we send them
overseas. We should invest comparably in making sure that that
training, that equipment, is relevant as they return home.
This summer I hosted a roundtable in Delaware on veterans jobs.
Nineteen participants came from a wide range of sectors: from the
military, from labor, from businesses, from all sorts of different
civilian support organizations that work with our returning veterans.
As we had a long and productive conversation, the message was loud and
clear: We can and should incentivize private businesses to hire
veterans. We can help connect the private sector--these businesses
across America--with veterans whom they want to hire. And we can and
should do a better job of helping returning veterans transition to
civilian service.
In Delaware and across the country, we have had some great programs
in the past: Helmets to Hard Hats, for example, one with which I became
familiar in my previous service in county government, that connected
folks in the building trades who wanted to welcome into their ranks
veterans returning from recent service, with those who have served our
country honorably overseas and are now home fighting for jobs.
There is also the Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve, or ESGR,
with which I regularly communicated as county executive and continue to
offer my support as Senator, that helps make sure those who serve
overseas in the Guard and Reserve know that their employers understand
and respect their legal obligations and their moral obligations to
provide employment opportunities comparable to those they had before
they deployed.
We also had participating in this important conversation this summer
Delaware companies that have made a public pledge to hiring veterans,
Summit Aviation in Middletown, JPMorgan Chase, with a very large
presence in Delaware, which has made a very real and sustained
commitment to hiring returning veterans.
We have a jobs crisis in America. Today, Delaware's veterans
unemployment rate is 8 percent. While that is good compared to the
national average, 8 percent should not be a good number. In my view,
this Congress could have no higher priority than helping Americans get
back to work and in that priority helping America's veterans get back
to work.
The bill we are on today is the fourth major jobs bill full of ideas,
many of which originally came from the other side of the aisle for job
creation that we have introduced and considered--the American Jobs Act,
a bill that would put public safety workers and teachers back to work
and sustain their public service role; a bill that would invest in the
infrastructure bank and public dollars for infrastructure all over this
country--and all of these bills have been blocked--not defeated but
blocked, prevented through filibuster from even coming to the floor. If
ever there were a jobs bill that has earned bipartisan support, it is
the one this body will vote on later today. Today, we have an
opportunity to make it easier for our veterans to find jobs, and
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I am encouraged by very real signs that this bill may pass, so that all
of us can go home tomorrow to our States, participate in Veterans Day
ceremonies, having voted for a bill designed to help so many of
America's service men and women ease their path back to full employment
in the civilian economy. I believe we owe them nothing less.
This bill offers tax credits to businesses in the private sector that
would hire veterans. It guarantees servicemembers access to training
designed to facilitate their transition to civilian life, and allows
them full use of the skills they have gained in service to our Nation,
and it cuts through some of the bureaucratic redtape that has made it
difficult for veterans to get access to Federal resources.
I am proud to be a cosponsor of this bill, just as I was proud to
cosponsor with Senator Murray of Washington the hiring heroes act this
spring. We owe it to America to work more aggressively together, across
the aisle, in confronting this ongoing jobs crisis. I urge my
colleagues to vote in favor of the VOW to Hire Heroes Act today.
Obtaining Permanent Residency
Madam President, I also wish to take another few minutes to discuss a
bill that I hope will pass the Senate later today on a similar topic.
It is a small bill addressing a complicated issue, but it will make a
big difference in the lives of many of our servicemembers.
When an American marries a foreign national, an immigrant, and that
immigrant decides he or she wants to become an American citizen, they
begin a process of obtaining permanent residency, of applying for and
seeking a green card. Before the 2-year mark in that process, the
couple must fill out a form together and appear for an in-person
interview. You have a 90-day window to file that paperwork and another
90 days to appear for this in-person interview together. Here is the
problem. What if you are in the military and deployed abroad. What if
the American in this couple is in a war zone and cannot make it back to
the United States in that limited, tightly defined 90-day window for an
in-person interview. You might miss your opportunity for you and your
spouse to have the interview and secure his or her green card in this
United States.
Our soldiers, in my view, have enough to worry about without adding
this to the list. The bill we will offer later today is a simple fix.
My colleague, Senator Graham of South Carolina, and I have introduced a
bill that Congresswoman Zoey Lofgren introduced in the House earlier
this year. It would give our servicemembers the flexibility to wait
until after their deployments have concluded in order to conduct these
in-person interviews. That measure passed the House of Representatives
426 to 0. It is my hope it will also pass this Senate unanimously
tonight.
We are blessed in this Nation to be served by volunteers, by men and
women who go to the other side of the world to serve us in the interest
of freedom. The two bills I have spoken of here on the floor today are
things that we can and should do together across the aisle to advance
their interests in having the enjoyment of liberty for which they
sacrificed so much.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Blumenthal). The Senator from Oklahoma.
Mr. INHOFE. I ask unanimous consent that at the conclusion of the
remarks from the Senator from West Virginia, Mr. Manchin, and the
Senator from Indiana, Mr. Coats, that I be recognized as in morning
business.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The Senator from West Virginia.
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