Senate Dems To Old Nazis: No Social Security For You!

This seems like a probably good idea: Sens. Chuck Schumer and Bob Casey plan to introduce legislationthat would cut off Social Security benefits for accused Nazi war criminals. We weren't actually aware that was a problem, but it turns out that "dozens" of former SS guards and other suspected war crimers continued to collect Social Security even after they were forced to leave the U.S., thanks to a loophole in immigration law that the Justice Department used to persuade them to get out of the country. Schumer and Casey want to end the payments, although at this point only four ex-Nazis are still living and collecting the benefits.

Even so, it seems like a pretty easy bill to get behind -- can't imagine a lot of Republicans are going to be willing to risk being accused of wanting to literally give taxpayer funds to actual Nazis. Pat Buchanan might have a sad, considering the pathetic stiffy he had for poor old John Demjanjuk, the guy whose supporters defended him from claims that he was a Treblinka guard known as "Ivan the Terrible," because he was too busy keeping Jews imprisoned at different concentration camps (Sobibor and Majdanek) at the time.

Presumably, the efforts of DOJ investigators to use Social Security benefits as an incentive to get Nazi war criminals to leave the country won't be harmed too much, since we can maybe hope that there aren't a heck of a lot of them still living here to begin with. It also seems unlikely that anyone's going to call Schumer and Casey mean-spirited for taking away a benefit that had been promised to lure the Nazis to leave. Who knows, maybe Buchanan can get a column out of how dishonorable it would be to break our promise to these poor persecuted Nazis.

GOP support for the measure is not guaranteed, however, as it does nothing to punish accused perpetrators of purely   metaphorical   Holocausts. 

[ HuffPo / Associated Press ]