David

Karki

Read Davids bio and previous columns here

October 8, 2007

SCHIP = Socialist HillaryCare

On Wednesday, President Bush vetoed an expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) that was so riddled with nonsensical illogic and outright fraud – not that you'd ever know it from the usual left-tilted media coverage – that in an earlier and more honorable age, the bill would have been dead from the outset, if even offered in the first place. But Democrats being the "socialist end justifies any dishonest means" types they are, and Republicans being the gutless cowards they are, this bill is frighteningly close to becoming law via an override of Bush's veto.

The Democrats have delayed the override vote for two weeks in an attempt to both bribe and intimidate 25 House members into changing sides from the 265-159 original vote, to provide the 290 needed. (The Senate is already a lost cause, so spineless is the GOP caucus in that chamber.) A couple weak-kneed GOP representatives have already bailed, anticipating the usual hate-mongering, all-emotional-manipulation-and-no-facts Democrat propaganda assault, with innocent unaware children used as political pawns. If only they had some guts, they could easily shoot this down with the facts:

• The bill is supposedly for "children," yet childless people up to 25 years old are eligible. Since when is a 25-year-old with no kids eligible for taxpayer-funded insurance through a "children's" program? Since this isn't a children's program but pure HillaryCare with kids as cover, that's when.

• This bill is supposedly for those not poor enough to qualify for Medicaid, but it includes incomes up to 400 percent of the poverty line. That's $82,000 a year! That is not poor, by any legitimate definition of the word. This is simply a middle-class entitlement, and one that anybody worthy of the title middle-class and the independence it connotes should neither need nor want.

• This bill is supposedly to be paid for by a tax increase on cigarettes (50-plus cents) and cigars ($10 each!) What happens when people quit smoking due to the added expense and tobacco products inevitably sell less and generate far less tax revenue as a result? You guessed it – the Democrats will scream that they just have to raise taxes to keep all those poor kiddies from losing their precious little program. It's bad enough that this bill is pure socialism, it's also a bait-and-switch tax-hike grenade just waiting to have the pin pulled out.

• Finally, since when is paying for children’s health care expenses anyone's job but their parents? I know you probably think I'm an out-of-touch old fogey for saying this, but I can't see the words "health" or "care" in my copy of the Constitution. Of course, since no one in Congress has read or followed the founding document which they all swore an oath to uphold as written upon taking office, I know I'm wasting my time on this aspect, but one would like to think the supreme law of the land might just be taken into consideration at some point, as we otherwise blindly race headlong into Marxism.

I hope that the 25 Republican representatives that the Democrats are hoping to bully, threaten, cajole, and bribe into defecting over the next two weeks find the principle to say no and make President Bush's veto stick. This bill is dishonest, fraudulent, tax-increasing socialism and will give us HillaryCare without even electing her. And a Republican Party that can't find it within itself to oppose this loudly and proudly – nor to explain why in a simple, concise way that neither the demagogic Democrats nor their liberal allies in the mainstream media can twist or spin – is a Republican Party that doesn't have long left to survive.

© 2007 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.

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