Indiana GOP lawmaker: U.S. indebtedness is putting country on the road to Nazism

Saying that America is headed towards bankruptcy, outgoing Indiana State Treasurer Richard Mourdock told a Republican crowd today that the country's indebtedness bore similarities to pre-Nazi Germany and could lead to a similar fate, according to the Indy Star.

"The people of Germany in a free election selected the Nazi party because they made great promises that appealed to them because they were desperate and destitute," Mourdock said. " And why is that? Because Germany was bankrupt."

Mourdock, who is term-limited out of office this year, made his comments in his farewell address to the Indiana Republican Convention held in Fort Wayne.

The lawmaker alluded to this week's 70th anniversary of the D-Day invasion, stating, "The truth is, 70 years later, we are drifting on the tides toward another beachhead and it is the bankruptcy of the United States of America."

Mourdock then went on to elaborate.

"Over the next several years, every time a program began to fall apart, Mr. Hitler's party was very, very good at dividing Germany by pointing to this group or that group," he said. "First they went after their political opponents. Then they went after the aristocrats. Then they went after the trade unionists. And ultimately of course they went after the Jews. They deprived them of their property, their rights, their citizenship, and for millions their humanity. Because they were bankrupt!"

Indiana Democratic Chairman John Zody called Mourdock's comments "ugly," saying, "I have an important lesson for Richard Mourdock. Your exit as a publicly-elected officeholder in Indiana couldn't come any sooner."

Members of the Indianapolis Jewish Community Relations Council issued a statement condemning  Mourdock's speech.

"We are extremely disappointed to learn that Treasurer Mourdock chose to invoke the rise of Hitler and the heinous acts of the Nazis in comparison to America's national debt," said Shelby Anderson, president of the board. "Such comparisons are highly offensive and trivialize both the suffering and memory of the six million Jews and millions of others who perished under the Nazi regime."

Murdock most recently ran for a U.S .Senate seat in 2012, ending fellow Republican  Sen. Richard Lugar's 36 years in the Senate, before losing to Democrat Joe Donnelly in the general election. Mourdock's campaign  was hampered by his comments regarding rape and abortion after stating at a debate, "Life is that gift from God that I think even if life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen."