Vets Call On Obama To Fire Alan Simpson

[unhappycamper]

Vets Call On Obama To Fire Alan Simpson
Ryan Grim
[e-mail] | HuffPost Reporting

A major veterans organization called on President Obama to remove Alan Simpson from the deficit commission for questioning why veterans are not "helping us to save the country" by foregoing health care benefits promised in return for their military service.

On Tuesday, Simpson, a former Republican senator from Wyoming and currently the co-chair of a deficit commission looking into spending cuts, decried "the irony that the veterans who saved this country are now, in a way, not helping us to save the country in this fiscal mess."

Simpson wants to cut the national debt by slashing benefits for veterans. VoteVets.org, which represents 50,000 veterans and family members, has had enough. The group's chairman, Jon Soltz, said that veterans had been concerned by comments Simpson made disparaging Social Security, calling it "a milk cow with 310 million tits!" and suggesting that military pay be frozen.

The "final straw," writes Soltz, was Simpson calling for veterans' benefits to be cut.

"President Obama, this week you called for all Americans to honor and thank our troops. I know you agree that honoring our troops can't just be lip service. And the best way to honor those who serve our country is to make sure that we take care of them once they return home," he writes. "It has become all too clear that Senator Simpson cannot be trusted to objectively review the budget and make impartial recommendations about our nation's economic priorities. We ask that you remove him from his current position so that the commission can continue its work in a way that will give the military community--and all Americans--confidence in the conclusions it reaches."




unhappycamper comment: This camper votes to remove Simpson.

[PuraVidaDreamin]

1. kick and rec

Seriously.... get rid of that nastiness.

[Ganja Ninja]

2. Why is Obama sitting on his hands and letting this fester?

We're only 2 months from an election, you'd think he would want to nip this in the bud.

[sarge43]

3. Maybe I missed it, but

in all the sound and fury about benefits, I never heard anything about congresscriters, senators, cabinet members and others giving up their entitlements such as medical care, franking, pensions, even salaries (most of them are independently wealthy), etc.

It's the same "Don't look here, look there" diversion as the illegal immigrates - not a mumbling word about coming down on those who hire them.

[w8liftinglady]

4. this vet's mom says kick him to the curb asap-we need to before November

[Tsiyu]

5. Kicking

for Vets


:kick:

[rasputin1952]

6. This jughead needs to GO!

:grr:

[dgibby]

7. Given Simpson's rather long and sordid track record,

I have to ask: Why did Obama appoint him in the first place?