Why is Bush Vetoing the child health care bill, Is he having another tantrum against the Democrats in Senate?
Other - Politics & Government - 14 Answers
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1 :
Did you just get out of a coma? This was done a while ago. The Dems want to slip nationalize health care through under the guise of child health care and Bush wouldn't let them do that. 23 year olds are not children and people making 80k or more a year should be able to pay for their own health care; I shouldn't have to carry them.
2 :
Because the nation cant afford it why don't other states have mi child programs like Michigan that for $5.00 a month pays everything for your child till age 19? health eyes teeth.
3 :
No there are things attached to the bill that will be detramental. That is the problem with the political system anything can be attached to any other bill to try and force the President to sign it. Thats also why the President needs a line item veto power!
4 :
Maybe he hates kids... or probably he just wants that money for Iran.. or Iraq.. or to give it to Israel... who knows. I can't begin to understand this crazy man.
5 :
It probably doesn't yet address the issues that he considers important. The president has said outright that he would not sign a bill that: A) Did not ensure that 90% of low income children were enrolled prior to covering middle income children, B) Receives its funding from a cigarette tax incrase, which just so happens to be a highly regressive tax (disproportionately taxes the poor) Based on the idea that this bill is supposed to protect poor children, you would think that by now Congress would have made these provisions. Doesn't Congress want to help poor children?!? Too bad! I guess they are too caught up in politics and the next election to govern.
6 :
It's not fair. It makes moderate income families who also can't afford health care wait behind lower income families and the unemployed. If we are going to have subsidized health care for children it should be available to everyone. What we really should do though is stop the frivolous malpractice suits, and encourage the private insurance companies to stop raising their rates so much.
7 :
Because he and the repKon base do not benefit from it, and he couldn't care less about the children of people who aren't wealthy donors to neo causes
8 :
Oh Please, stop it I know for a fact that nobodies that stupid. Do you know how to say pork?
9 :
u suck . cause he wana
10 :
Old news, Thank God for Bush
11 :
He wants a blank check for his Rubber Stamp REPUBLICAN War in Iraq, but he won't do anything for the children of America. It's really disgraceful. The man has no concept of compromise.
12 :
he is just doing what republicans do, hate dems and there priorities and will vote against anything that looks like a hand out that they cannot make a profit off of.
13 :
Why is it that key facts are always left out of questions like this? This is not another tantrum and there is a lot more to the bill than the headline suggests.
14 :
If you followed this stry, he vetoed it because it was unfairly taxing to middle class citizens. · President Bush on Wednesday vetoed a bipartisan bill that would have dramatically expanded children's health insurance, after saying the legislation was too costly and had strayed from its original intent. It was only the fourth veto of Bush's presidency, and one that some Republicans feared could be used against them in next year's elections. The Senate approved the bill with enough votes to override the veto, but the margin in the House fell short of the required number. The State Children's Health Insurance Program, or SCHIP, is a joint state-federal effort that subsidizes health coverage for 6.6 million people, mostly children, from families that earn too much to qualify for Medicaid but not enough to afford their own private coverage. The Democrats who control Congress, with significant support from Republicans, passed the legislation to add $35 billion over five years, allowing an additional 4 million children into the program. It would be funded by raising the federal cigarette tax by 61 cents to $1 per pack. The president had promised to veto it, saying the Democratic bill was too costly, took the program too far from its original intent of helping the poor, and would entice people now covered in the private sector to switch to government coverage. He wants only a $5 billion increase in funding. Bush argued that the congressional plan would be a move toward socialized medicine by expanding the program to higher-income families. The president faces a possible rebellion by Republican lawmakers who back the bill. Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA) berated Bush on the Senate floor for having labeled the legislation "irresponsible" in his radio address Saturday. "If you want to talk about the word responsible and whether Congress is responsible or not in this bill, I would say that anybody that wants to leave the program the way it is — and that's what's going to happen with a veto — that's an irresponsible position to take," Grassley said. House Democratic leaders have said they will wait until next week or later to try to override a veto. They are hoping by then to peel off some 15 Republicans to get the two-thirds majority they need for an override. Texas A&M presidential scholar George Edwards says that lawmakers who stick with the president could pay for it in next year's elections. "I think in a widely supported policy like the SCHIP bill, that the risks are substantial for Republicans," Edwards said. "It's difficult to take the case to the voters on something specific like that when we're talking about health care for children and explain the complex rationale for opposition." Asked why the president has also issued veto threats against almost all the spending bills this year, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said the president has a role to play in the legislative debate. "One of the things the president can do is say, 'I'm not going to sign a bill that comes to me with extraneous spending. I'm not going to sign a bill that has policies in it that should not be a part of the United States policy,'" Perino said. "And so I would hope that we wouldn't have to do veto threats, but I think that the Democrats have shown that these are the types of legislative angles that they're going to take, and that's why the president has to send some veto threats up." At issue is the fact that, added together, the spending bills exceed the president's own budget by some $23 billion. But Dan Mitchell of the libertarian Cato Institute says that amount is paltry compared with the amount of excess spending that Bush signed during the Republicans' control of Congress. "There certainly does seem to be a legitimate argument that the president only objects to new spending when Democrats are doing it, because he certainly wasn't objecting when Republicans controlled Congress," Mitchell said. On Tuesday, the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee said that if there is a spending problem, it is the White House asking for nearly $200 billion in war funding. "If the president is really concerned about stopping red ink, we are prepared to introduce legislation that will provide for a war surtax for that portion of military costs related to our military action in Iraq," Rep. David Obey (D-WI) proposed. If President Bush does not like that cost, he added, he can shut down the war. Most Republicans derided the idea of a war surtax. "You pay for the war by winning the war," said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC). "This is not an accounting exercise. How did we pay for World War II? Everybody rolled up their sleeves and did the best they could." They also paid a war surtax. But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi gave the idea a thumbs down; so did Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. "The speaker said that is not what she wants," Reid explained. "That's good enough for me." Facing a spate of veto threats, Democratic leaders show little appetite for a separate fight over raising taxes. With additional reporting from The Associated Press heres the link.... http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14938419
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