Working Conservative Majority: Surging on SCHIP

by: Matt Stoller

Tue Aug 21, 2007 at 20:10


Typically, the American political system responds a bit slowly to popular pressure, but it does response.  If a Democrat is elected, it moves a bit to the left.  If a Republican is elected, it moves a bit to the right.  Clinton, in 1994, moved his own politics to the right in response to 1994, and Reagan moved to the left after 1982.  The conservative movement and Bush's innovation is that they were able to repudiate this traditional pragmatic response mechanism.  Take the surge.  In 2006, Democrats won on a strong antiwar sentiment, yet today, we have more troops in a bloodier war in Iraq than we've ever had.  Rather than concede to popular opinion while maintaining some of his mandate from 2000, 2002, and 2004, and withdraw some troops, Bush simply escalated the war.  Democrats, because of the Bush Dogs, could do nothing about it.

This is not just a pattern with the war, or national security issues like the expansion of wiretapping.  Bush is simply immune from legal accountability, since Democrats won't use tools at their disposal, like impeachment, so Gonzales lies with impunity under oath, and then goes biking.  And it's also fairly standard with legislation itself, even really really popular stuff, like SCHIP, which is health care for poor kids.

Democrats sought a very popular expansion to this very popular program.  Instead of tolerating some expansion in response to the 2006 election, Bush effectively cut SCHIP through administrative maneuvers.  Hit hard are poor kids in mostly blue states that now cannot avail themselves of the Federal SCHIP program.

Administration officials outlined the new standards in a letter sent to state health officials on Friday evening, in the middle of a monthlong Congressional recess. In interviews, they said the changes were intended to return the Children's Health Insurance Program to its original focus on low-income children and to make sure the program did not become a substitute for private health coverage.

Bush really doesn't care.  He's threatened to veto the Energy Bill, the Farm Bill, all appropriations bills, and SCHIP reauthorization.  He will have no compunction about shutting down the government if Democrats don't cave.  And cave they will, because of the Bush Dogs.

That means that Bush, though weaker than he's ever been in the polls, is governing.  And Democrats, even conservative Democrats, are not.  There's no reason this has to be the case, except that Democratic leaders like Steny Hoyer and Rahm Emanuel just will not fight Bush in any serious way, progressive caucus members don't play hardball with PACs and primaries, and Blue Dogs and New Democrats are simply willing to follow Bush.

I'm glad the Blue Majority page has add Al Franken, Donna Edwards, and Charlie Brown, all three of whom are outspoken and good Democrats that are unafraid to buck conventional wisdom and be leaders.  We need many more and better Democrats, and money and support is an incentive for that.  We also need a stick, and that's coming as well.

Matt Stoller :: Working Conservative Majority: Surging on SCHIP

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Working Conservative Majority: Surging on SCHIP | 16 comments
Same As It Ever Was (0.00 / 0)
Bush, of course, is lying again.  SCHIP was orginally authorized to allow flexibility to the states (remember "states rights"?)  As Texas governor, Bush was adamantly opposed to granting expanded coverage to Texas children, as
Lou Dubose explained in an article in The Nation, "Running on Empty".

An excerpt, quoted at length because of the broader context and interlocking similarites between Texas then and America now, even though the political winds should be blowing the other way:

But although Bush may be a good fit for Texas, is he a good fit for the nation? Consider, for a start, his legislative record. As guests of the Black Caucus settled in for lunch, the House was at work on the first piece of his 1999 agenda. "There's a lot of people hurting," the governor had said this past January when he requested that the Senate waive its procedural rules and immediately bring to the floor a $45 million tax break for the oil-and-gas industry. The decline in oil-and-gas prices, Bush argued, erodes the earnings of thousands of "stripper well" owners (most unaccustomed to seeing their annual individual income fall below $100,000). And it threatens the flow of tax revenue the wells provide to a number of Texas school districts.

The relief bill for owners of these marginally productive wells was not going to be stopped in the House, the last redoubt of the Texas Democratic Party after Bush's defeat of hopelessly underfunded Land Commissioner Garry Mauro carried Republicans into all twenty-seven statewide elected offices, from attorney general to land commissioner. In fact, House Democrats couldn't even hold their six-seat majority together to limit oil-and-gas tax relief to $200,000 per individual. But a veteran black legislator from Houston did use the debate to direct legislators' attention to another bill, which the governor and his staff were opposing. The oil-and-gas bill is about relief, "about helping people out," Sylvester Turner said, praising perhaps too effusively the tax bill and its Republican sponsors. So he was going to vote for it. Then Turner challenged every representative who was going to cast a vote for the governor's oil-industry bill to vote for adequate funding of the federal/state Children's Health Insurance Program, which would be on the House floor within a few weeks.

While Bush and his staff were pushing the oil-and-gas tax bill through the legislature, they were also fighting to hold the line on health insurance for children whose families earn too much to qualify for Medicaid but too little to purchase private health insurance. There are 1.4 million children in Texas who have no health insurance. If eligibility were set at 200 percent of the federal poverty level, more than 500,000 of them would qualify to purchase low-cost insurance policies. Bush insisted, however, that the line be set at 150 percent, eliminating 200,000 children in a state second to California in the number of uninsured children and second to Arizona in the percentage of uninsured children. "It shouldn't even be a fight," said Austin Democratic Representative Glen Maxey, adding that Republican governors in Michigan, California, Florida and New Jersey all agreed to their states' participation in the program. "Christine Whitman is even going to 300 percent," he noted.

That is how the 76th Legislature began in Texas, with the governor flogging a tax break for oil-well owners while limiting a children's health insurance program that brings the state a three-to-one match in federal funds. The two bills illustrate Bush's dual welfare policies: expanding benefits for clients of the corporate welfare state while imposing harsh restrictions on people in need of help. They are also consistent with most of what Bush has set out to achieve since he was elected in 1994.

If we had a functioning news media in this country, you might have actually heard about this back in 2000 during the  presidential campaign, and maybe folks wouldn't have been so enthusiastic about having a kid-hater in the White House.

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

Media (0.00 / 0)
The media never bothered to inform the public that "compassionate conservative" had a meaning in general use by conservative media and think tanks:  a government that would purposefully and purposely shut off government aid to the poor (allegedly so they would either sink o swim on their own abilities; of course the oil well owners needed "help.")
[ Parent ]
Bush's weakness is his strength (up to a point) (0.00 / 0)
It's the final Congress of a dismal prez, whose party has gone into the minority.

All Bush has is to power to make mischief, and there's no comeback. He got away with murder in his first term and got re-elected - so he's hardly going to be Joe Restraint now.

So we get the surge, and the Petraeus pantomime. And his sole spasm of fiscal conservatism is directed against the poor kids getting the benefit of SCHIP.

The Dems - my interpretation - also see this Congress as largely a waste of time: it's pretty much worthless for enacting anything like a Dem program; it's mostly downside for them (with the GOP bound to obstruct the good stuff), an opportunity for them to screw up their big chance of winning a trifecta in 08 (à la 1948).

They don't want to risk capital in a Congress which is in death's waiting-room, by challenging Bush on Iraq or internal security or much of anything.

They foresee any such ventures ending ridiculously as Bush runs out the clock, ever more dripping in irrelevance.

I think they have a point.

Like I said below... (0.00 / 0)
  What's the basis for the belief that there's a "risk" in standing up to a president most Americans no longer take seriously?

  Wouldn't you think that there's at least as much of a "risk" in doing nothing? The polls seem to suggest as much.

  What DO the Democrats think they got voted in for, anyway?

"We judge ourselves by our ideals; others by their actions. It is a great convenience." -- Howard Zinn

[ Parent ]
Depends on what 'stand up' means? (0.00 / 0)
The problem on Iraq withdrawal and FISA, to take but two, is that there is no third way between action and inaction, where action means defying Bush and taking their case to the American people.

The risk is just too high, however high the reward.

The veto (not to mention the filibuster) stymies most things worthwhile in the 110th: they need a trifecta in 08 for that.

Plus - the idea of being turfed out of their maj leadership roles and chairmanships after a single term is just too terrible to contemplate!

Think of it from their point of view - they do.

[ Parent ]
JTA (0.00 / 0)
If they do nothing, of course they could be fucked.

But, if they are, it'll be by the Fickle Finger of Fate, not by their own hand. (As it were.)

That's the psychology.

[ Parent ]
Self-fulfilling prophecy (0.00 / 0)
  I honestly don't know why these people bother running for political office if they have no intention of actually USING the power invested in their seats.

  Sure, the perks are good. But there's many other jobs that offer them as well, and they aren't quite such an effort to land.

  But if our representatives are scared of their own shadows, to the point where they won't even stand up for popular positions, then our form of government is pretty much dead anyway. Wonder what Uruguay is like...

"We judge ourselves by our ideals; others by their actions. It is a great convenience." -- Howard Zinn

[ Parent ]
They're going to get turfed out... (4.00 / 1)
  ...if they keep on doing nothing to stop Bush.

  We've seen this movie before, in 2002.

  Looking at it from their point of view -- why DO the Democrats think they won in 2006? What's their take on that? Better suits?

 

"We judge ourselves by our ideals; others by their actions. It is a great convenience." -- Howard Zinn

[ Parent ]
A question not asked enough... (4.00 / 1)
  We always hear about how the Democrats need to be "cautious" and not pick fights with the mighty, all-powerful Republicans, lest it jeopardize the Dems' chances of capturing the White House in 2008.

  Has anybody really examined IF going easy on Bush and the Republicans WILL improve the Dems' odds next year? It's spouted around like it's conventional wisdom, with NO evidence that it's in fact the case.

  What will be the Dems' excuse if they lose next year? After all, they couldn't possibly be more pusillanimous than they've been so far.

"We judge ourselves by our ideals; others by their actions. It is a great convenience." -- Howard Zinn

in fact (0.00 / 0)
Has anybody really examined IF going easy on Bush and the Republicans WILL improve the Dems' odds next year? It's spouted around like it's conventional wisdom, with NO evidence that it's in fact the case.

There's indisputable evidence that it's not the case - Congress' approval ratings are in the gutter because of Congressional Dems' refusal to meaningfully confront Bush.

[ Parent ]
That's what's puzzling (0.00 / 0)
  The Democrats seem to think that being weak and nonconfrontational will HELP them in the 2008 elections -- when the evidence on hand suggests the exact opposite. They justify every cave-in, every concession, every card-folding under the "we're looking at 2008" rationalization.

  Do the Democrats have a death wish? It's irrational to try to lose, but we don't live in rational times.

  I'm just wondering what the underlying dynamic here is. How can a group of presumably smart, well-educated people act in such a self-destructive way, all at once?

"We judge ourselves by our ideals; others by their actions. It is a great convenience." -- Howard Zinn

[ Parent ]
The states should just ignore it. (4.00 / 1)
Take a page from Bush and just keep doing what they're doing.  Look at the article:

In his letter, Mr. Smith said the new standards would apply to states that previously received federal approval to cover children with family incomes over 250 percent of the poverty level. Such states should amend their state plans to meet federal expectations within 12 months, or the Bush administration "may pursue corrective action," Mr. Smith said.

12 months from now is most of the remaining term.  What could Bush do in the remaining few months?  Meanwhile, we can hammer the Republicans in Congress.



New Jersey politics at Blue Jersey.

when I say ignore (0.00 / 0)
I mean a commission of respected statesmen should study it for the next 12 months, then get an extension.

New Jersey politics at Blue Jersey.
[ Parent ]
Geographical note (0.00 / 0)
Want Democrats who "stand up to Bush":  vote in more from the bluest of the blue states.  Take the vote on HR-2206 where Democrats voted against funding the Iraq War without troop limits by a tepid 86-140 vote.  Let's look at the Democrats from the bluest states:

CT  0-4
NH  0-2
MA  0-10
RI  0-2
VT  0-1
ME  0-2
NY  1-21 (Gillibrand)
NJ  1-6  (Andrews)
CA  4-28 (Baca, S Davis, Cardoza, Costa)
OR  0-4
IL  3-7  (Lipinski, Bean, Emanuel)
HI  0-2
MD  2-4  (Hoyer, Ruppersberger)

That's an overwhelming proportion with spine.  And 93 of the 140 good votes to boot (just 9 with Bush).  Think those three close races in upstate NY or NJ-5 would have been progressive?  Yup.

More iffy:

MN  2-2  (Peterson, Walz)
WI  2-3  (Kagen, Kind)
OH  2-4  (Space, Wilson)
IN  4-1  (Carson the only good vote)
MI  4-2
IA  1-2  (Boswell)
WA  3-3  (Baird, Dicks, Larsen)
PA  7-4  (4 of 5 votes from the Philly area, none outside)
FL  4-5  (Boyd, Mahoney, Meek Wasserman-Schultz)

That's 26 more no votes.  And 29 yes.

Rest of country: 21 no, 35 yes.

Want more spine?  The easiest route is to elect more Democrats from NY, NJ, IL, and CA and primary the few fools. 

Caling 'em "Bush Dogs" does two things. (0.00 / 0)
1) It makes 'em seem 'cute,'
2) It defames dogs.

Call 'em what they are: Bushits...

What Dumbocraps think? (0.00 / 0)
The Democrats seem to think that being weak and nonconfrontational will HELP them in the 2008 elections -- when the evidence on hand suggests the exact opposite. They justify every cave-in, every concession, every card-folding under the "we're looking at 2008" rationalization.

it will help 'em with the one constituency about which they care the most: the CorpoRats!

Working Conservative Majority: Surging on SCHIP | 16 comments





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