Blog - Articles Tagged 'Veterans'

While the House is out on recess, the Senate is doing something quite remarkable this week -- they're voting on a bipartisan basis to advance bits and pieces of President Obama's jobs bill. But while this is certainly progress and a net positive, the incredibly limited scope of what they're advancing, compared with the enormity of the crisis facing the economy, also underscores just how dysfunctional Congress is.

The Committee of Veterans' Affairs yesterday voted in favor of reporting legislation to expand collective bargaining rights for health care workers at the Department of Veterans Affairs. The bill would amend a section of U.S. law that Democrats say the Veterans' Department is misusing to block certain VA health workers from negotiating over basic pay issues, like overtime, weekend pay, and physician incentive pay.

The House yesterday approved it's version of an expanded volunteer/national service package, one of President Barack Obama's priorities for the legislative calender. The Generations Invigorating Volunteerism and Education (GIVE) Act sailed through the House by a vote of 321 to 105. The Senate is expected to vote on a companion piece, the Serve America Act, next week.