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Veterans who want to run their own small business are getting attention in the nation’s capital. The Senate Appropriations Committee passed an amendment yesterday to the Emergency Supplemental Appropriations bill to provide an additional $600,000 in funding for veterans business resource centers in Saint Louis, Boston, and Flint, Michigan, which are very close to closing due to funding shortfalls. Missouri Senator Kit Bond (R-MO) offered the amendment which received support from Senators John Kerry (D-MA) Olympia Snowe, (R-Maine), Carl Levin (D-Mich.) Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii) and Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) who all wrote letters expressing their strong support for funding for veterans business resource centers. Patrick Heavey, Executive Director of the St. Louis Veterans Business Resource Center has evidence of the importance of the centers in the community and the track record of the Missouri center: “We do know for sure, is that in fiscal years 2006 and 2007, we created 161 new businesses. And those businesses employ an average of three people each.” A recent report by the Department of Veterans Affairs found that the percentage of military veterans in the labor forced jumped to 23 percent in 2005, a sharp increase from 10 percent in 2000. According to the report, 18 percent of veterans who left the military within the past one to three years were unemployed and a quarter earned less than $22,000.
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