As the S-CHIP override veto vote is coming up in two days, it is important to know what we are dealing with here. The President is trying to communicate that his proposal still increases S-CHIP, but only for the poorest of the poor.
Basically he could care less about people that consider themselves "middle class." The successful passage of this bill would serve as a tremendous blow to his ideology that government must not help average Americans. But for PR's sake, he does not want to look as mean as he is so he favors a "20 percent increase in funding" or so you would believe. The traditional media is reporting it as fact, but we can never count on them to discern facts or practice journalism here. Thankfully we have Media Matters.
From Media Matters:
An October 13 Wall Street Journal editorial criticizing the response by congressional Democrats to President Bush's veto of legislation that would increase funding for the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) by $35 billion over five years asserted that "in truth, the Bush Administration endorses a modest expansion" of the program. The editorial went on to claim that "after his veto Mr. Bush repeatedly signaled a willingness to compromise and spend more than the $5 billion he would prefer to pump in -- which is by itself a 20% expansion." In fact, Bush's plan to "pump in" an additional $5 billion over five years would underfund the program by $9 billion during that period, according to the Congressional Budget Office. As Media Matters for America has repeatedly documented, in May, the CBO estimated that "maintaining the states' current programs under SCHIP would require funding of $39 billion for the 2007-2012 period." But a $5 billion increase from baseline funding -- Bush's proposal -- over five years would total $30 billion.
Bush and his handlers try to be clever, but this isn't fuzzy math here. The CBO knows what it's doing and easily exposes the President's bullshit. See, he would rather crush and underfund the program more than anything. His blind devotion to his so-called ideology is sickening to say the least.
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