There is an obvious political agenda surrounding the SCHIP expansion, and it is a game politicians on both sides have been playing for years.
As expected, President Bush vetoed the children's health insurance bill today. Also as expected, this has brought an onslaught of attacks from the left, coupled with blatant lies to back them up. Senator Harry Reid, who is quickly moving my top ten list of useless politicians, called it a "heartless veto."…
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26 - Cindy D
"...they likely will not be able to afford their health care when they succeed in making themselves sick, so society (I.e., the government) will have to take care of them.
More likely, they'll end up paying the cigarette taxes and then not be able to afford their medication.
27 - Cindy D
so, no, the government won't "take care" of them.
28 - bliffle
"It's not heartless, Bliffle, it's just part of the way the system works."
The way the system works!
Ahhhh, so if Joe Blow, driven into bankruptcy by medical bills for his children and desperate, bops you on the head in a dark Austin street, takes your cash and steals your car, that's just part of the way the system works?
Because surely the system, or perhaps the meta-system, worked that way.
And if I said so I wouldn't be heartless?
29 - handyguy
The cigarette-tax provision is, pardon the expression, just smoke and mirrors.
The Pay As You Go rules in Congress require that every bill pay for itself - except, apparently, Pentagon spending. The cigarette tax increase will probably never actually become law - look how enormous it is, a 300% increase or something.
So the bill will probably end up adding to the deficit. But to some of us, if there has to be deficit spending, better to use it on good social programs than rotten foreign policy.
30 - Cindy D
Cigarettes have already been taxed into absurdity. I predict a new market in home-grown tobacco, complete with new laws to determine "personal use" quantities versus quantities that suggest an intent to sell.
31 - Clavos
There already is a thriving black market in the southeastern states for cigarettes from North Carolina and Virginia, which, for obvious reasons are much less taxed than cigarettes sold elsewhere.
I can remember buying bootleg NC cigarettes here in Florida all the way back in the 60s.
32 - bliffle
"SCHIP: What They Aren't Telling You"
What 'they' aren't telling you is that this is a red herring to make a fuss while 'they' allocate hundreds of billions more to the Iraq invasion and to prepare to invade Iran.
One can imagine the scene in the Neocon War Room in DC:
"we need something to distract the (gullible) US public from the next couple hundred billion$ of invasion money" says Cheney. "get me Karl Rove on the phone!"
"That's easy, just make a big noise about something that everyone has an opinion on, that'll keep the peasants preoccupied" says Karl. "It's a simple matter of bread and circuses".
So they send down orders to the ink-stained wretches at their various newspapers, etc. Even to the petty neocons on blogs, tiny little outfits like BC.
One can almost hear Nalle enthusiastically acquiescing with "HUA!". Or was that "heil"?
33 - Dave Nalle
It's a lovely paranoid fantasy, Bliffle, but it bears no resemblance to the real world.
No one sent me a memo, and as far as I can tell this SCHIP problem originated with Democrats in Congress. If they'd just extended it with minor improvements no one would ever have made an issue of it.
Dave
34 - Baritone
Had the Dems simply ammended SCHIPS as you suggest, Dave, it would have continued to leave millions of children without any adequate access to healthcare. To suggest that it was simply a political move on the part of the Dems, I would suggest that ALL the moves by ALL the Dems and Reps are political. These people are first and foremost politicians for crap sakes! What do you expect?
B-tone
35 - handyguy
It's not just Democrats supporting this bill. There are enough votes in the Senate to override the veto, and only 20 votes too few in the House. Republican Charles Grassley, not a liberal, seems passionate on the issue [and on trying to override]. This is not a simple left-right issue, although extremists on both sides have been quick to take up predictable positions.
36 - Cindy D
The majority of Americans want the SCHIP increase.
Washington Post/ABC News Poll Oct. 2
37 - bliffle
Dave sez: "...No one sent me a memo,.."
I know, I know, it's a knee-jerk reaction by now. You're so good you can anticipate the next command without having to actually hear Your Masters Voice.
In ElectroMagnetic wave propagation theory one learns that a Group signal can travel faster than the speed of light (seemingly in contradiction to Einstein, seemingly). This must be the way Nalle detects these wishes of the Masters And Gurus in DC.
38 - REMF
"It's a lovely paranoid fantasy, Bliffle, but it bears no resemblance to the real world."
Always nice to be called "paranoid" and lectured on the "real world" by a guy who lives in a fortified compound, ehe bliff?
39 - Jerry
Bliffle -
What if Dave, who's known to own firearms, has a concealed weapon in that dark alley, and blows Mr. Blow away, isn't that also how "the system works"?
40 - bliffle
Now that SCHIP has served it's purpose as a red herring to distract attention from Iraq Invasion funding all those neocons who feigned interest in controlling deficits and/or healthcare for children have dropped out of the conversation. Thus proving my assertion that it was a distraction all along.
41 - bliffle
With budget fatigue set fully in place Bush has demanded of congress another $44billion in Vanity War funding, thus dwarfing, again, the few pennies that might have been spent on childrens health.
Clearly, the SCHIPs furor was instigated to dull your senses to the upcoming finanncial onslaught by Bush.
Nalle, Clavos, etc., beat the drums and sounded the horns about the sheer madness of spending money on mere children. After all, that money could be better employed paying off his backers and supporters.
Sleep on, o sheep of America.
42 - gonzo marx
bah....all the so-called Democratic "strategists" should be forced to drink bleach for their own incompetence
S-CHIP is a perfect example
all you need to do to fuck with the WH and make the majority of Americans go "yaaaay!" is to place ALL the War funding, as well as S-CHIP into the overall budget
this stops the WH from bullshit Enron style accounting when they try and claim they are being fiscally responsible...
AND if W slaps a veto on it, the Dems can then ask, VERY publicly , WHY he doesn't support the troops and why he hates America's children so much he doesn't want them to get health care
so fucking simple, yet they remain so fucking clueless
so...any of you Elected Representatives want a strategist who can show you how to actually WIN a political battle...yer gonzo suggest not only Machiavelli, but the Art of War as well
nuff said...
Excelsior?
43 - Charles Signorile
what Democrats fail to realize in regards to the SCHIP debate is that Bush was not saying we cannot afford $35 billion over 5 years. Funding for the war will end shortly, wether it be 1 year of 5 years or 10 years, it will not be a cost passed on to our children. An expanded entitlement program however will only continue to grow, and as we have seen with the failed social security system, once the government starts a program to "take care of people" it is impossible to dissolve.
44 - gonzo marx
Charles sez - "Funding for the war will end shortly, wether it be 1 year of 5 years or 10 years, it will not be a cost passed on to our children."
no offense intended, but bullshit!
Iraq is off budget, and deficit spending..it's already on the nation's credit card for well over half a trillion dollars...our kids and grandkids are already the ones paying for it
at least they could be healthy enough to work in order to pay for it all
as for the 1, 5, or 10 year bit...you do know that the mercenary contractors have NO defined endpoint in their agreements?
those folks are there, on our nickel, for eternity, according to their contracts...and check those prices!!
gotta take it all into consideration, and ya can't palm that ace when folks are watching...
Excelsior?