Obama's Latest Jobs Push: Putting Veterans to Work

President Obama took to the Rose Garden today to issue a plea for another part of his jobs plan: a tax credit for businesses hiring unemployed veterans, and an even higher credit for hiring veterans with a disability. After fighting for our country overseas, Obama said, "the last thing they should have to do is fight for a job when they come home." He added that when he announced the idea in a speech before Congress in September, people on both sides of the aisle stood up. "When the TV cameras aren’t necessarily on each of them, I expect both sides of the aisle to stand up for our veterans and vote in the affirmative" for the credits, which range from $2,400 to $9,600 per veteran, reports Politico.

The push is the latest in Obama’s "We Can’t Wait" initiative, and as before he’s backing it up with executive actions that don’t require congressional approval, USA Today reports. This time those include a “Veteran Gold Card” that will give former military members six months of career counseling, a website that suggests new careers based on veterans’ military history, and a Veterans Job Bank that will directly connect veterans with employers—the White House boasts that it already has 500,000 job postings. (More Barack Obama stories.)