The First Lady’s Quest to Support Military Families

The Census Bureau says that there are approximately 23.4 million veterans in the United States.  The Republicans dominated this demographic in the 2010 mid-term elections, seeing most of their gains in the districts that had the most military veterans.  Right now Republicans control more than 75% of the 218 congressional districts that have large concentrations of veterans and active duty military members.

One of President Obama’s challenges will be to convince military men and women that slashing defense spending would be a good idea.  Although that could be a tough nut to crack, probably the best plan to help active military members’ families and veterans would be to create jobs, help the economy to grow, and to cut down on wasteful government spending.

First lady Michelle Obama released a new video in March 2012 in which she asked United States soldiers and veterans to help her husband get reelected in November.  While talking about the ninth anniversary of the war in Iraq, she said, “Nine years later, we remember those who gave their lives and honor the sacrifice of all the brave women and men who served our country.”  She continued, “In 2008, Barack made a promise that as president he would bring the Iraq war to a responsible end. He kept his word.”

She went on to say that the president has done everything he could to support military veterans and their families, including ObamaCare, increased funding for the Department of Veterans Affairs, and tax credits for businesses that hire wounded members of the service.

On April 11, 2012 the first lady opened up another front in her campaign to support military families.  On that day she announced that she planned to push for more jobs on and near military bases.  She also announced that she planned to mark the first anniversary of the Joining Forces campaign with a four state tour.

Joining Forces had said that it already has gotten commitments for more than fifteen thousand jobs, mostly from customer support and telemarketing companies, over the next few years.  These types of jobs will enable veterans and the spouses of people in the military work from home.

These kinds of mobs can be especially helpful for military families because they tend to move about ten times more often than most other families in the United States.

In a conference call with reporters Mrs. Obama said, “We’re trying to meet these spouses where they are… This will make such a huge difference… When the next set of orders comes in for these families and they have to move across the country, they’ll be able to move these jobs with them.”

Mrs. Obama said that so far the jobs aspect of Joining Forces has exceeded her expectations.  She said, “The country is stepping up in ways both large and small.”

Meanwhile, although roughly eight percent of the general population is veterans, almost twenty percent of the homeless population is veterans.  The VA (Veterans Affairs) and HUD (the Departments of Housing and Urban Development) estimate that on any given night there are more than 67,000 homeless veterans.  And, over the course of a year, there are about twice that many. 

Some of our vets are standing in long lines, waiting to be processed with 211Software, so they can spend the night in a homeless shelter.  Hopefully whoever is elected in November will do whatever is necessary in order to bring the number of homeless veterans down.