Governing by Tantrum

"I veto, therefore I am" is the new theme of the Bush Administration.

In 1948, Harry Truman got to stay in the White House by railing against a Republican "do-nothing" Congress, and George W. Bush is now using the tactic in an effort to remain "relevant" as he prepares to leave the Oval Office.

"Congress has little to show for all the time that has gone by," he complained at his last press conference, a bizarre charge for a President who has vetoed Iraq appropriations bills, S-CHIP health insurance and this week is threatening to send back a water projects bill with enough bipartisan support to override his veto.

There is a kind of spoiled-rich-kid intransigence to the new Bush that is consistent with his behavior for six years when Republicans controlled both Houses and rubber-stamped whatever he wanted. Now, in the face of opposition, he is stamping his feet and threatening to hold his breath if he doesn't get his way.

"He may decide that all he wants to do is veto and stop progress," says Rep. Rahm Emanuel, head of the House Democratic Caucus. "But everybody will know who wants to change things, and who wants to keep them just the way they are."

But if Congressional Democrats are confident that voters will make that distinction next year, they should look closely at their approval ratings, which are lower than the President's.

To dramatize his claims about a do-nothing Congress, Harry Truman had called a special session on what was known as "Turnip Planting Day" in Missouri. His opponents obliged with inaction and made his point.

If today's Democrats want to avoid looking like turnips in '08, they had better start moving now.

Bush Explains the Veto

The President is not against the government helping poor children get health care insurance. He just wants to be sure that there isn’t too much for too many and especially not for kids whose parents could cut back on a few of the necessities and buy it from private insurers.

As he explains in his veto letter, the misguided bipartisan bill “moves our health care system in the wrong direction” and turns it into “a program that would cover children from some families of four earning almost $83,000 a year.”

White House statisticians must be working overtime these days because last week the program was covering families with up to $73,000 a year.

But no matter. The heart of the President’s argument is that “Our goal should be to move children who have no health insurance to private coverage, not to move children who already have private health insurance to government coverage.”

Why can’t radicals like Chuck Grassley and Orrin Hatch understand that? If they keep going in this direction, every kid in the country would have health insurance and Congress would have devastated a major American industry.

Karl Rove's Ghost Walks the White House

The architect is gone, but his spirit lives on and, as in all horror shows, is manifesting itself in grotesque ways. The political possession of the President has gone from prolonging a lost war to demonizing Democrats (and infected Republicans) who want to provide health insurance for poor children.

Yesterday the House passed the SCHIP bill by 265 to 159, with 45 Republican votes, an impressive but not veto-proof margin. President Bush, who fervently believes in majority rule for Iraq, the White House was quick to announce, will override the 106-vote difference as well as whatever the headstrong Senate does.

In true Rovian fashion, Bush has been denouncing Congress for playing politics over the bill with which he has been playing politics.

As the President of the United States keeps acting like a kid threatening to hold his breath until he gets his way over the war, wiretapping and now the health of real children, when will grownup Republicans say “Enough!” and send him to his room?

This may turn out to be the time.

Suffer the Little Children...

As the cost of the war in Iraq approaches $200 billion a year, President Bush is threatening to veto a bipartisan bill to provide health insurance for children of low-income families because it will cost $12 billion a year rather than the $6 billion he approves.

The added funding would increase the number covered to 10 million from 6.6 and, unlike war costs, would come not from all taxpayers but those who add to health risks with a 61-cent increase in the federal excise tax on a pack of cigarettes.

According to the President, it isn’t the money, it’s the principle of the thing. At his press conference this week, he explained the “philosophical divide.”

“Democratic leaders in Congress,” he said, “want to put more power in the hands of government...I have a different view. I believe the best approach is to put more power in the hands of individuals by empowering people and their doctors to make health care decisions that are right for them.”

The decisions the President is talking about have nothing to do with actual health care--treatments, medications, etc.--only money: Do private insurers keep collecting one out of every three dollars spent for their overhead and profit? Or does Congress bypass them to make health care available for more of the poor?

Next week will provide a reality test for this kind of posturing with the lives of American children. If Bush vetoes the increase, will enough Republicans join in overriding it?

George W. Bush, Philosopher

The President is threatening to veto a bipartisan Senate proposal to increase the State Children's Health Insurance Program by $35 billion over five years. His opposition is on “philosophical grounds.”

Bush’s philosophy, like everything else in his Administration, is dogma. In this case, the moral principal is that “when you expand eligibility...you're really beginning to open up an avenue for people to switch from private insurance to the government."

At least he is consistent. While overseeing the worst-managed war in American history, he is defending to the death one of the worst health-care systems in the world.

The program in question, which costs the federal government $5 billion a year, helps provide health coverage to 6.6 million low-income children. Another 3.3 million would be covered under a proposal by Senate Finance Committee, which is supported by such Republican radicals as Sens. Charles Grassley and Orrin Hatch, among others.

But the President is adamant. “I expect people to speak out,” he said in a Washington Post interview about the bill and health care. “I also have my own points of view and feel very strongly about a lot of issues."

His philosophy has deep traditional roots, perhaps best-expressed by one of Charles Dickens’ most memorable characters. Asked for money for the poor, his answer reflected the guiding Bush principle: “Are there no prisons...and workhouses?” If he were alive today, Scrooge might have added, “And no HMOs?”

Bush: Saving the Never-to-Be-Born

Give the man credit for his convictions. The President’s reverence for life is so profound that he will take political heat not only to defend the unborn but the never-to-be born.

Today’s veto of the stem-cell research bill will save embryos no longer needed in fertility clinics. In his view, somebody has to stand up for such unfortunates in the face of the Godless who cruelly want to use them for research to combat Parkinson's disease, spinal cord injuries and strokes.

In supporting such legislation, former First Lady Nancy Reagan is surely missing the point. As much as she loved her late husband, would she have wanted him helped at the cost of degrading the value of human life? If she is interested, the President would undoubtedly be willing to explain this sacred principle to her.