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Monday, November 05, 2007
SCHIP Is About Politics
The NYT a pretty interesting article on the politics behind SCHIP, but it has big problems. First, the article makes it pretty clear that the President decided to veto this bill regardless of what was in it. He has never tried to work with the bill's designers to come up with an acceptable compromise. The veto is entirely his decision and his fault. So why then is the headline "Missteps on Both Sides Led to Health Bill Veto?"
Now, who's fault is it that the veto wasn't overridden?
Missteps by each side made compromise impossible. Democrats say that Mr. Bush described the bill in wildly inaccurate terms, got bad advice from his staff and missed many opportunities to find common ground. Republicans say that Democrats misjudged the president; excluded House Republicans, who in the end were crucial, from negotiations; and aimed negative advertisements at the very members whose votes they needed to override a veto.
Perhaps that's true enough, but it's wrong to interpret the calculated decision to try to block SCHIP as resulting from someone's "missteps." The Administration and many House Republicans essentially don't want the SCHIP reauthorization to be enacted. They nearly admitted as much when they declared victory once their veto was sustained, and when Bush said that the whole veto push was mostly about him retaining political strength.
A more plausible explanation for the deadlock is that most conservatives, and even some hyper-partisan liberals, aren't interested in meaningful compromise. SCHIP has become the object of a major political fight, and it's incredible that the article would explain the failure to enact it as some kind of tragedy of errors.
Posted by Matt Lewis
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