Shame on Bush AGAIN
Bush vetoed the children's health insurance bill.
Bush Vetoes Children’s Health Insurance Bill
By DAVID STOUT
Published: October 3, 2007
WASHINGTON, Oct. 3 — President Bush vetoed the children’s health insurance bill today, as he had promised to do, setting the stage for more negotiations between the White House and Congress.
Mr. Bush wielded his pen with no fanfare just before leaving for a visit to Lancaster, Pa. “He’s not going to change his mind,” Dana Perino, the chief White House spokeswoman, said this morning just before the president cast only his fourth veto.
The bill was approved by Congress with unusual bipartisan support, as many Republicans who side with the president on almost everything else voted to expand the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, or Schip, from its current enrollment of about 6.6 million children to more than 10 million.
The measure would provide $60 billion over the next five years, $35 billion more than current spending and $30 billion more than the president proposed. Mr. Bush and his backers argue that the bill would steer the program away from its core purpose of providing insurance for poor children and toward covering children from middle-class families.
Democrats immediately issued statements expressing their anger.
“Today we learned that the same president who is willing to throw away half trillion dollars in Iraq is unwilling to spend a small fraction of that amount to bring health care to American children,” said Senator Edward M. Kennedy, the chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.
Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, said the “heartless veto” showed how “detached President Bush is from the priorities of the American people.”
Representative Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, said, “Today the president showed the nation his true priorities: $700 billion for a war in Iraq, but no health care for low-income kids.”
Gov. Jon Corzine of New Jersey said: “Once again, President Bush has missed an opportunity to display compassionate leadership. Instead, he has resorted to political and ideological gamesmanship rather than seek a bipartisan solution that would protect this nation’s most vulnerable children.”
Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, said: “We have no choice but to try to override his veto. The Senate already has the votes to do it, so it is now up to the holdouts in the House to decide whether to vote their conscience or join the president in putting ideology above kids.”
Mr. Schumer put his finger on the numbers working against supporters of the bill. It cleared the Senate by a veto-proof 67 to 29, but the vote in the House was 265 to 159, a couple dozen short of the two-thirds needed to override Mr. Bush’s veto.
Representative Roy Blunt of Missouri, the House Republican whip, told The Associated Press he was “absolutely confident” that there was strong enough opposition in the House to sustain a veto. But Mr. Blunt’s counterpart in the Senate, Trent Lott of Mississippi, said Congress should be able to reach a compromise with the president. “We can work it out,” Mr. Lott told the A.P.
Bush Vetoes Children’s Health Insurance Bill
By DAVID STOUT
Published: October 3, 2007
WASHINGTON, Oct. 3 — President Bush vetoed the children’s health insurance bill today, as he had promised to do, setting the stage for more negotiations between the White House and Congress.
Mr. Bush wielded his pen with no fanfare just before leaving for a visit to Lancaster, Pa. “He’s not going to change his mind,” Dana Perino, the chief White House spokeswoman, said this morning just before the president cast only his fourth veto.
The bill was approved by Congress with unusual bipartisan support, as many Republicans who side with the president on almost everything else voted to expand the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, or Schip, from its current enrollment of about 6.6 million children to more than 10 million.
The measure would provide $60 billion over the next five years, $35 billion more than current spending and $30 billion more than the president proposed. Mr. Bush and his backers argue that the bill would steer the program away from its core purpose of providing insurance for poor children and toward covering children from middle-class families.
Democrats immediately issued statements expressing their anger.
“Today we learned that the same president who is willing to throw away half trillion dollars in Iraq is unwilling to spend a small fraction of that amount to bring health care to American children,” said Senator Edward M. Kennedy, the chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.
Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, said the “heartless veto” showed how “detached President Bush is from the priorities of the American people.”
Representative Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, said, “Today the president showed the nation his true priorities: $700 billion for a war in Iraq, but no health care for low-income kids.”
Gov. Jon Corzine of New Jersey said: “Once again, President Bush has missed an opportunity to display compassionate leadership. Instead, he has resorted to political and ideological gamesmanship rather than seek a bipartisan solution that would protect this nation’s most vulnerable children.”
Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, said: “We have no choice but to try to override his veto. The Senate already has the votes to do it, so it is now up to the holdouts in the House to decide whether to vote their conscience or join the president in putting ideology above kids.”
Mr. Schumer put his finger on the numbers working against supporters of the bill. It cleared the Senate by a veto-proof 67 to 29, but the vote in the House was 265 to 159, a couple dozen short of the two-thirds needed to override Mr. Bush’s veto.
Representative Roy Blunt of Missouri, the House Republican whip, told The Associated Press he was “absolutely confident” that there was strong enough opposition in the House to sustain a veto. But Mr. Blunt’s counterpart in the Senate, Trent Lott of Mississippi, said Congress should be able to reach a compromise with the president. “We can work it out,” Mr. Lott told the A.P.
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