vetoing americas children

Vetoing America's Children

Wednesday, during a speech in Pennsylvania, President Bush joked about

being a C student. But America's children weren't laughing. In fact,

if it were up to them, Bush would get an F for what he did earlier in

the day. He vetoed SCHIP, a federally funded program that gives states

money to provide health insurance to children from low-income

families. It's a bill that had bipartisan support in Congress.

But while you brought up grades Mr. Bush, let's revisit your school

days. This veto just confirms something we already suspected . . . how

little attention you paid to Economics 101.

Granted, few have the brains to crunch numbers like a Wharton MBA.

However, with a graduate degree from Harvard Business School, we

figured President Bush could solve this riddle. What is the better

5-year investment for the U.S. Government, is it spending an

additional $35-billion on plan that will help keep American children

healthy or throwing away more than $500-billion on failed war policy?

The ripples of this veto will extend even beyond 5 years if the

Republicans in the House won't change their vote to help override the

veto. SCHIP will also save billions of dollars over the long run by

preventing diseases like diabetes, certain cancers, and heart disease

for many of the 7 million kids that would benefit from SCHIP.

On the other hand, continuing to invest in Iraq ensures spending

billions more on a bad policy.

"It's appalling that President Bush and his Republicans will spend

billions of dollars in Iraq, some of it on contractors like

Blackwater and Halliburton, while denying millions of children

needed doctors' visits or medicine here at home," said DNC Chairman

Howard Dean.

Here are some more numbers for Bush to think about: 43 governors, 18

Republican Senators and 45 House Republicans all support SCHIP.

According to recent polls, 86 percent of the American people

support reauthorizing SCHIP, with seven in ten saying they support

the Democratic plan to expand SCHIP by $35 billion over five years.

[Robert Wood Johnson Foundation release, 8/23/07; Washington Post,

10/2/07]

Bush claims to understand the economics of it. He says he's being

fiscally responsible by vetoing SCHIP. Talk about being penny-wise and

pound

foolish. Although looking like a fool is something Bush is comfortable

with, we just thought he would consider an exception for the sake of 7