Dems child-sized human shields
>If you thought for a moment that Harry Reid and the Democrats might have obtained some wisdom and maturity over the weekend and put down their child-sized human shields, think again. The presidential veto override vote on the S-CHIP entitlement expansion is set for Thursday. Though they admit they probably don’t have the votes, Democrats are already crowing about this “defining moment.” They have vowed to introduce yet another bill if their override fails. Meanwhile, their universal health care minions continue to inundate the airwaves with noxious “Bush vs. the children” ads. Hollyweirdos are cursing their heads off at critics of the massive government expansion. And the questionable poster parents hand-picked by Harry Reid are keeping their child on center stage.
***
This just in…Harry Reid’s favorability ratings are now lower than President Bush’s in Nevada among most likely voters. Order up some more human shields!
***
Darleen Click notes the Frost parents’ apparent change of heart on parading their children in public and wonders: Where are the adults in the Left?
As for the mindless mantra that we’re attacking a child, attacking a child, attacking a child, attacking a child, attacking a child, I challenged the lefties to quote a single instance on my blog of a single negative, ad hominem word I’ve written attacking the Frost children. The response? Nothing.
Amy Ridenour gets to the heart of the matter at hand:
What’s regrettable about the SCHIP debate is not that the Frost family received national attention after seeking it out, but that so many important parts of the debate are being glossed over. Nothing in the Reid-cum-Frost radio presentation, for instance, mentioned that the Reid-Pelosi $35 billion SCHIP expansion plan is underfunded.
The big-spending expansion proponents urge Congress to adopt a 61 cents per pack cigarette tax increase to pay for expansion. But as Michelle C. Bucci and William W. Beach of the Heritage Foundation have pointed out, there aren’t enough smokers to pay the SCHIP expansion tab. Bucci and Beach say new tobacco tax funds may be sufficient for no more than two years’ worth of the expansion, and certainly not much more. What will Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi do then? Start running public service announcements asking people to take up smoking, because the Frost family needs help?
…Another inconvenient truth left out of the Reid-Frost presentation is the bitter little fact that whatever funding a tobacco tax increase provides will be highly regressive — even as the SCHIP expansion makes that program less regressive. As David Hogberg in his paper “SCHIP Expansion: Socialized Medicine on the Installment Plan” for the National Center for Public Policy Research pointed out, if the expansion plan is adopted, “it is not inconceivable that a parent with one child with an income of $13,690 will be funding benefits for two children in a family of four with an income of $82,600.”
12-year-old Graeme Frost probably doesn’t know the SCHIP expansion he’s fronting for would tax the poor to fund the middle class. What’s Harry Reid’s excuse?
Ernest Istook looks at the left-wing groups propping up their kiddie human shields for the Dems:
Americans United for Change (AUC), MoveOn.org, and the Service Employees International Union (which claims over one million hospital workers as members) are spending millions on the effort. Also coordinating and mobilizing people are groups such as the American Cancer Society’s Cancer Action Network, the AARP, and the American Medical Association. Sadly, rather than supporting ways to make medical bills more affordable, many in health care are pushing to have government pay those bills.
When costs are too high, what do we fix by having government pick up the tab?
AUC says the coalition will generate one million immediate contacts from constituents to lawmakers who opposed the bill. They promise to make this a major issue in congressional campaigns next year. Says AUC President Brad Woodhouse, “We’re taking this on … as epic a battle as the battle to end the war.”
Propaganda is an integral part of warfare, and this group is making it their main weapon. Families USA, for example, presents the issue using cartoonish rhetoric in website headlines such as “Bush vs. Kids” and “President Bush to Children: “No Health Care for You”“
The rally organizers are pulling out all the stops, too. As one e-mailed rally invitation noted, “If you have kids, definitely bring them, too!”
For the Children. Of the Children. Behind the Children. Dodging every step of the way.<
michellemalkin.com |
