Grassley Huffing Over SCHIP Veto Threat
Written by Sam on September 20th, 2007 
After hearing Bush say Thursday that he was going to veto the bill in part because it would allow families of four making $80,000 to place their children on the the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), Grassley blasted the president, saying his assertion was dead wrong.
“The president has been served wrong information about what our bill will do,” Grassley said Thursday between Senate votes. “There’s nothing in our bill that would do that. His understanding of the bill was wrong.”
Bush, in a morning news conference, told reporters that “Congress has made the decision to expand the program up to $80,000. … This is a step toward federalization of health care.”
Grassley said that a waiver to allow higher income families to utilize SCHIP has been taken out of the conference committee compromise forged between House and Senate negotiators over the past two days.
The House will vote next week on the final legislation, followed by the Senate. The Senate should reach 68 votes in favor of the bill, enough to override a presidential veto, but the House is far short of a veto override, meaning lawmakers will have to scramble to figure out whether to temporarily extend the program, which expires Sept. 30, or let it lapse. The compromise under consideration would increase spending on children’s healh by $35 billion and would be funded 61 cent tobacco tax increase.
You know what Chuck? You show me where in the Constitution you are granted the authority to steal money from me and give it to other peoples’ children and I’ll stand up and be outraged with you. Until then, shut the hell up and go back to the cornfields. It’s disgraceful that you would call yourself a Republican and support a tax increase for expanding Socialism.
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PM
So angry…Does providing health care for impoverished children really irritate you that much? Maybe I don’t want my money “stolen” to fund outrageous military allocations either (which cost a lot more than a pair of glasses for a kid who can’t see).
Anyway, please encourage your candidates to adopt this tone during the election. When your buddy Fred starts talking about how he doesn’t want any of his loot “stolen” to provide medicine for sick kids, Hillary will beat him by 30 points instead of 20 points.
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I’ll also add that any one of you could vote with your feet on this matter. I recently moved out of the US to a country with no income taxes, and so the first $85K of my income is not subject to US income taxes.
I’m sure you would sleep better at night knowing that you weren’t having any of your money “stolen” to pay for poor Jimmy’s brain tumor to be removed.
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Thank you for moving out of this country.
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It’s that simple…Families are responsible for providing health care for their childern, not the federal government. Publius, your thoughts…
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Socialized medicine failed in Cuba, Canada, and Great Britian…why do we need to repeat history. Minga!!!
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PM
So punish the children for the economic shortcomings of their parents? Or do you just think that poor people shouldn’t have sex and/or reproduce in the first place?
There are many things we long ago decided were worth taxpayers’ money for the common good, from education to roads. I anticipate that the country will soon consider it our “common good” not to hear stories about children dying from toothaches. (http://www.parentdish.com/2007/03/01/12-year-old-dies-from-tooth-infection/).
Considering how much we spend on the military and wars of choice (esp. under the current administration), I find it unsettling that it’s the issue of children’s access to health care that’s being labeled as “stealing” taxpayers’ money.
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The issue with the SCHIP bill, in my understanding, is not so much “stealing money” from tax payers and so on. It is the expansion of the program to include many families that do not necessitate government provided healthcare. We should, as much as possible, encourage people to utilize the private sector instead of relying on government. Government is, in the end, the worst provider of economic goods.
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AM
It makes perfect sense that we go into debt destroying Iraq, and then go into further debt replacing the hospitals and schools that we destroyed there.
I don’t understand why conservatives think that it’s noble to provide schools and healthcare to Iraqi children, but doing the same for American children with taxpayer dollars is out of the question.
Okay, so people should “take care of themselves”, unless of course they are foreigners that we are engaged in war with- and then we have unlimited tax dollars to spend.
Personally, I’d rather see the dollars spent to keep little Billy - not little Ahmed - healthy and educated.
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John,
At which point in my commentary did I say that it was perfectly ok to provide schools and health care to Iraqi children with our tax dollars? I was opposed to invading Iraq and I would rather our tax dollars go to neither place, but rather stay in the pockets of the earner because that is where the money is best spent.
You may not want to assume things. You know what they say about that.
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Becky - Poor people shouldn’t have sex…what does that have to do with anything? Punish childern for the shortcomings of their parents…well bigger government control will only make it worse.