Com­ment: The Repub­li­cans con­tinue to outdo them­selves in their heart­less, amoral pro­nounce­ments and actions. Even with their track record of fil­i­bus­ter­ing to pre­vent an exten­sion of unem­ploy­ment ben­e­fits to Amer­i­cans who lost their jobs as a direct result of years of Repub­li­can “cor­po­ratism” (Mussolini’s term for fas­cism), it is hard to believe how out­ra­geous they have become.

A new low was hit recently by Alan Simp­son, for­mer Repub­li­can Sen­a­tor from Wyoming, who is co-chairing a “debt-reduction” com­mis­sion bankrolled by pow­er­ful reactionaries.

“Alan Simp­son: Vet­er­ans ‘Not Help­ing Us’ Save Coun­try from Debt” by Brian Beut­ler; Talk­ing Points Memo; 9/1/2010.

Excerpt: If Social Secu­rity is “a cow with 310 mil­lion tits” then what’s the proper metaphor for veteran’s ben­e­fits? We don’t know. But Alan Simp­son seems to think they’re too expen­sive. Or too overused. Or some­thing. Any­way, it’s bad.

“The irony (is) that the vet­er­ans who saved this coun­try are now, in a way, not help­ing us to save the coun­try in this fis­cal mess,” said Alan Simp­son, co-chair of the White House’s fis­cal com­mis­sion, accord­ing to the Asso­ci­ated Press.

Simp­son was refer­ring specif­i­cally to the dis­abil­ity ben­e­fits the Depart­ment of Vet­er­ans Affairs dis­penses to Viet­nam vet­er­ans exposed to Agent Orange.

Accord­ing to AP, Simp­son declined to com­ment on whether this issue would be exam­ined by the com­mis­sion. But as TPM has reported, some mem­bers of the com­mis­sion have sought to pri­or­i­tize cuts to ser­vice mem­bers and vet­eran ben­e­fits over other defense spend­ing cuts. . . .