Last night, Jon Stewart went after Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) for his role in successfully filibustering the veterans jobs bill.



WILLIE GEIST (9/20/2012): On Capitol Hill, legislation aimed at putting the nation's veterans back to work has been blocked in the Senate.

Yes, the Senate voted on a bill that would provide a billion dollars to veterans...

to help them get jobs in law enforcement, fire departments, and/or federal lands. The bill was affirmed by 58 Senators, rejected by only 40, thus failing to pass, because apparently in Senate world, 58-40 is a losing score, and you eat out of your anus and shit out of your ears.

Leading the charge against America's fighting men, Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn, who opposed it on grounds of fiscal responsibility



SEN. TOM COBURN, R-OK (9/20/2012): If in fact we're going to start addressing the bigger economic problems of this country, you gotta quit playing felonious accounting with what you're doing, which is exactly what that bill did. ... It's exactly the same kind of — pardon my word — crap that Congress has done for years.

(audience laughter and applause)

Yeah, here's the sad part. That picture was taken last year.

The Senator and some of his colleagues felt that the proposed methods of paying for this bill — imposing penalties on Medicare providers who'd been delinquent on taxes — was a less than solid fiscal foundation. Just out of curiosity, I'm just spitballin' here, how did we pay for the actual wars that made these individuals veterans who now need jobs?



NEWS REPORT (2/23/2009): ... engaging in accounting gimmicks over the years, leaving big ticket items like war spending out of official budgets.

Obviously, Senator Coburn was not in the Senate when the war began, but I'm sure the minute he got there, he brought the fiscal integrity he's famous for to even the supplemental war funding bills.



SEN. TOM COBURN, R-OK (3/30/2007): The Congress has taken a vacation ... while we haven't passed a supplemental for our troops. The American people ought to be outraged that we would leave here before we've taken care of our troops. I think it's unconscionable.

So once again, $800 billion dollars, unfunded, for war. A billion dollars, but paid for in a way you aren't crazy about to help the guys who fought the war get jobs afterwards? We're not made out of money, people. And that's why... Oh Right, Because Doing Something Would Have... The... Ugh.

We'll be right back.