Says it all.
Posted on 10/17/2007 7:13:18 AM PDT by TonyRo76
In their push this week to try to override President Bush's veto of an expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Programs (SCHIP), congressional Democrats called on singer/songwriter Paul Simon to press their case and to press Republicans to join in the attempted override.
"The president's veto of the reauthorization of SCHIP appears to be a heartless act," said Simon at a press conference Tuesday with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and other Democratic leaders. Paul Simon is the co-founder of Children's Health Fund (CHF), a group that provides mobile health care to poor children in urban and rural areas.
"I'm here today to ask those of you who supported the veto to reexamine your conscience, to find compassion in your heart for our most vulnerable and sweetest citizens, our children," he said.
The SCHIP bill, which would expand the program by $35 billion over five years, was passed by the House and Senate. But Bush vetoed it, because he said it increased funding too much and amounted to a first step to government-run health care.
The House of Representatives delayed a vote on the veto override to give supporters time to convince Republican opponents to switch their votes, so they can muster the two-thirds majority needed for an override.
The veto override vote is scheduled for Thursday, and Pelosi remains non-committal on whether she has been able to sway enough votes.
"We're in the midst of our advocacy campaign still," Pelosi said in a news conference on Capitol Hill Tuesday. "The moment of truth is approaching. We have 48 hours."
"I'm hopeful and prayerful that it will change the minds of some of the members," Pelosi said, adding that she has heard "reports that there may be a couple, some changes on the Republican side but the leadership in the House of Representatives has held very tightly to their members and made it a party issue that they vote with them."
CHF co-founder Irwin Redlener said he and Simon were urging passage of the SCHIP expansion because the issue of uninsured children is "too overwhelming" for privately funded groups like theirs to handle.
"The scale of the problem is large," Redlener told Cybercast News Service . "With this number of children involved, we really need the participation of the government."
He called SCHIP a "publicly funded private healthcare solution to uninsured children," referring to Bush's warning that the expansion was a move toward socialized medicine, a concern Redlener called "demeaning," "disparaging" and "mindless."
But Republicans maintain that the expansion moves the program beyond its original goal of insuring poor children, because it allows states to make coverage available to families making more than $60,000 per year. They argue it would also lead to upper-income families with covered children to forgo private health insurance for SCHIP.
In an interview Sunday on CNN, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) said Democrats "will not have the votes to override the veto. We will sustain the president's veto."
"We want to reauthorize this program but we think the poor kids ought to come first," Boehner said. "There are 500,000 kids in America who are eligible for this program who have not been signed up, yet there are some 700,000 adults who already are on the program."
Brian Kennedy, a spokesman for Boehner, criticized the Democrats' press conference, which featured a bipartisan presence from Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), and the majority's handling of the bill they knew would be vetoed.
"Democrats are spending a lot of time hosting press conferences, candle-light vigils and sing-alongs, but they haven't spent a minute working with Republicans to write a bill that actually puts low-income kids before rather affluent adults," Kennedy said in an e-mail to Cybercast News Service.
"This kind of shameless political posturing is beginning to backfire on them, which you're starting to see in the polls," he said, referring to a recent USA Today/Gallup poll which found that a majority of Americans "agree with the president that government aid should be targeted to low-income families."
Fifty-two percent of respondents agreed that most benefits should go to families making about $41,000 or less annually. Forty percent said families making up to $62,000 should be eligible for benefits.
While the poll showed most Americans agree with Bush's vision for SCHIP, a majority - 52 percent - said they have "more confidence in Democrats to deal with the issue," while only 32 percent expressed more confidence in President Bush.
Says it all.
Great. Some rich guy is mad because Bush doesn’t give away enough government money.
Quit whining and cut ‘em a check, Paul.
Not sure how much stock to put in Simon’s opinion. Maybe if he has a destitute 10 year old son who could weigh in on the issue?
Someone please give this little cuckolded twerp a taller soapbox.
He must be ginning up to go on a tour. Too bad Hannah Montana will probably outsell him.
LOL. “Me and Pelosi down by the Schoolyard.”
Go jump off a Bridge over troubled waters, Paul.............
Yeah, Paul, if you think it’s such a good idea,
show us the receipts that show you’ve paid for some stranger’s health insurance, VOLUNTARILY.
Then you can open your GD mouth.
Well, if nothing else, it verifies his existence. Some of us didn’t know he was still around. /s
And I’ll call you Al while you’re doing it.
Higher education ain’t all that either.
Paul Simon should know that once somebody has made an attempt to steal my wallet, I no longer feel obligated to support them through charity. If the Children’s Health Fund is going to be supported by tax dollars, they will get no additional support from me.
Maybe ol' Ted Kennedy could take him for a ride in his Oldsmobile.
Liberals and Jihadis have something in common: They throw bombs (verbal vs. literal) and then hide behind children when their intended targets stand up to them. And if any of the children get hurt in the process, hey, it’s not their fault! They simply run to the cameras and cry about how cruel their opponents are.
MOMMA PAJAMA!
It was a veto of the expansion, not the reauthorization; go back to Julio down by the schoolyard, you stupid twit!
***************
He's no spring chicken.
“50 Ways to Steal Your Money”...
Anyone related to Billy Ray Cyrus can't be all bad ;o)
LOL—it seems that a sure-fire way for has-beens to get some press is to criticize the President, and/or the war, and/or conservatives in general.
Get back on the bus, Gus.
Yikes! Just in time for Halloween...
Simon, MJFox, Crosby, Nash all trotted out to *sing* the Socialist line.
Only question now, who's next?
Do the Liberal-Socialists know the *priorities* of a large number of American voters or what.
Unbelievable?
...believe it.
Did he step outside of his $20 million home in the Hamptons to make this proclamation?
Perhaps his wife should “toss him in the shallow water before he gets too deep”.
Another stupid statement from the uninformed. Democrats killed the program by trying to extend benefits to the...drum roll ..... RICH!
There must be at least 50 ways of doing it...............
LOL! That's destined to be the next Paul Shanklin classic
The GOP should be trotting out its own “Graham Frost”...some 25 year old from a family making 80K a year who would be eligible for SCHIP under the Democrat bill. Make a commercial with him to show who the RATS want to give taxpayer money to and embarrass the hell out of Pelosi and Reid (and all the Pubs who voted for this nonsense).
What is wrong with the GOP, it does not know how to turn a lemon into lemonade?
Don't you wish you were tall, Paul?
That’s so gay.
Yeah, if someone paid for my health insurance, heck, why not my housing and food - they’re “needs”...
I could by a really cool sports car.
Hey, _I_ bought the sports car - the taxpayer only paid for my “needs”.
Hey Paul, try learning some new chords. Geez, your an ancient act that is completely dependent on 12 chords. Amazing what passes for talent these days. After all these years this clown can’t even play a Maj 7th chord. What a dunce.
When does Elmo get to testify? I heard Pulosi use some S $ G lyrics to rump swab him. It was putrid.
Or ‘’50 Ways To Be A Dumbshjt’’.
Didn’t Carrie Fisher say the same about Rhymin’ Simon?
Why yes! After all, society "owes" us these things, right?
;)
This is an admission of a failure to be able to lead.
Hey, Paul, have you finished sucking all of the talent out of Edie Brikell yet?
LOL!!!
These HAVE BEENS want to revive the 60’s and regain the limelight so desperately that they have become a JOKE!
Scary picture! Looks like he’s been embalmed.
I wouldn't put it past them. Putting a muppet up to "testify" before Congress?
No...I wouldn't put any of the lamest, gayest, stupidest stunts imagininable past these craven, desperate 'Rats.
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