Veterans Jobs Corps Initiative: Obama Unveils $5B Plan to Put Vets Back to Work

President Barack Obama unveiled a new $5 billion veterans jobs plan Friday that the administration says will put thousands of men and women who once wore their country’s uniform back to work.

The new so-called Veterans Jobs Corps initiative, first mentioned in the president’s State of the Union address the first week in February, involves partnerships with the Veterans Administration and the Interior Department and directing $1 billion that would put 20,000 veterans to work over the next five years rebuilding trails, roads and levees on public lands.

According to CNN, the plan is particularly geared to those veterans who served after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, a group experiencing an unemployment rate of 13.1 percent, compared to 8.1 percent for non-veterans.

“These are Americans that every business should be competing to attract,” the president said. said during a speech at an Arlington,Virginia firehouse. “They’ve already risked their lives defending America. They should have the opportunity to rebuild America.”

Additionally, Obama said his administration will preference awards of $166 million in grant money to communities that hire post-9/11 veterans for new law-enforcement positions. Simultaneously, $320 million in grant money will be preferenced to various fire departments that pledge to hire and train new veterans.

“Let’s get more cops on the beat, let’s get more rangers in the parks, let’s get more firefighters on call, and in the process, we’re going to put more veterans back to work,” Obama explained.

The money for those grants has already been appropriated by Congress as part of programs that are broadly targeted at retaining and hiring law enforcement personnel and firefighters. But the president is seeking an additional $4 billion in his upcoming budget to expand both programs with an eye toward awarding those communities who fill their ranks with veterans. Congress rejected a similar proposal last fall that was part of the president’s broader jobs initiative.

“Congress should take money we are no longer spending on war, use half of it to pay down our debt, and use the rest of it to nation build right here at home,” Obama said Friday.

Despite the positive buzz the proposed Veterans Jobs Corps initiative has created, the administration has not specified how it plans to pay for the program.

One administration official did, however, reveal that Obama hopes to work with Congress and use a leftover deficit-reduction provision from his American Jobs Act proposal to pay for the plan.

Watch the following clip on Obama’s proposed Veterans Jobs Corps plan and tell us your thoughts on the initiative in the comments section below:

via CNN