Deficit Commission Chair Troubled by Vets, Retirees, "Lesser People"

Heart of GlassNational Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform (AKA "Deficit Commission") co-chair former senator Alan Simpson's latest outburst has betrayed his ignoble sensibilities and misguided priorities. (h/t DailyKos)

Former Wyoming Sen. Alan Simpson's comments came a day after The Associated Press reported that diabetes has become the most frequently compensated ailment among Vietnam veterans, even though decades of research has failed to find more than a possible link between the defoliant Agent Orange and diabetes.

"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 Simpson...

Simpson is no backbencher congressman carping from the sidelines; he's leading President Obama's committee to save the budget. And this isn't an isolated incident.

We last heard from Simpson last week apologizing to National Older Women's League (OWL) Executive Director Ashley Carson for firing off an email to her complaining of her "babbl[ing] into the vapors about 'disgusting attempts at ageism and sexism' and all the rest of that crap." In that same missive Simpson articulated his disgust for Social Security by calling it "a milk cow with 310 million tits." And this follows a comment in June in which Simpson called Social Security recipients "lesser people."

Although I haven't read a response from the White House on Simpson's disparagement, the Obama administration stood by Simpson and refused to ask him to step down over the "tits" email.

When a nominally progressive president like Obama is totally OK with this kind of attitude from the captain of the Deficit Commission, sour times are ahead. If Simpson is that quick to stick a finger in the eye of the millions of Americans who served their country, chances are he's really not that interested in balancing the benefits of public protections and preserving a basic social safety net with the costs of slash-and-burn budgeting.

Image by Flickr user publicenergy used under a Creative Commons license.

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