The Associated Press
Wednesday 31 October 2007
Washington - President Bush told Republican lawmakers on Tuesday he will not agree to legislation expanding children's health insurance if it includes a tobacco tax increase, a decision that virtually ensures a renewed veto struggle with the Democratic-controlled Congress.
The president also suggested he would not be willing to sign other types of tax increases that Democrats have attached to major legislation, including an energy bill, according to numerous officials who attended a closed-door meeting at the White House.
Bush's remarks represented a hardening of the administration's public position in a running veto showdown over Democratic-led attempts to enact legislation that provides coverage for 6 million children who now lack it. The officials who disclosed his comments did so on condition of anonymity, saying they were made in a closed-door meeting.
The White House had no response Tuesday night to the report of the president's comments.
The president vetoed one children's health bill, and Democrats failed to override him in the House.
His threat to veto a replacement measure that cleared the House last week has led to a hurried round of negotiations among lawmakers in both parties and both houses.
Their goal is to reach a compromise that can command enough votes to gain the two-thirds majority needed in both houses to override the president's veto, if necessary.
The negotiations were private, but in an ominous sign for the White House, Republican leaders said during the day they might defy a White House veto.
House Republican Leader John Boehner of Ohio, asked if he might support a bill that the president would not sign, he replied: "That's always a possibility."
In a similar vein, House Minority Whip Roy Blunt, R-Mo., said he would "have to see the bill" before deciding.
Their comments were the clearest sign yet that even Bush's most loyal House allies are eager for an end to the impasse, which many Republicans see as politically damaging to the GOP.
The White House has said previously it opposes tobacco tax increases that Democrats included in the health care legislation, but only after first detailing numerous other objections. Additionally, the president's press aides have declined repeatedly to say whether he would sign a bill that raised taxes.
Bush supplied somewhat more emphasis in public comments Tuesday.
"You know, they proposed tax increases in the farm bill, the energy bill, the small business bill and of course," the children's health bill, he said of Democrats. "They haven't seen a bill they could not solve without shoving a tax hike into it. In other words, they believe in raising taxes, and we don't.
The vetoed bill would have brought the number of insured children to 10 million. The bill covered kids from families who make too much money to qualify for Medicaid but not enough to afford private health insurance.
The estimated $35 billion cost of the measure would be covered by higher taxes on tobacco products, including 61 cents per pack of cigarettes.
Several officials said that in the meeting with Bush, Rep. Joe Barton of Texas asked a question about the president's intentions with the health insurance measure. They said the president responded that he wants his budget director, Jim Nussle, to identify spending cuts to offset the cost of any measure.
They also said Bush appeared to extend his no-tax-increase pledge to other measures. They quoted him as saying that if he signed the tobacco tax increase, it would be difficult to draw the line later on other bills.
Barton could not be reached for comment.
The health insurance bill has emerged as a key flash point between Bush and the Democrats in Congress.
The bill's supporters need to add only about a dozen House Republicans to the 44 who voted Oct. 18 to override Bush's veto. If ongoing negotiations can gain that number, and ideally a lot more, then GOP leaders could embrace the deal regardless of the president's stance, Boehner's and Blunt's comments indicated.
Taxes aside, other sticking points have revolved around Republican demands that poor children gain coverage before others are insured and that strict provisions are included to prevent benefits going to illegal immigrants.
Bush, and most House Republicans, also want to eliminate or reduce participation by adults and families earning more than $62,000 or so.
Boehner said of the disagreement with Bush over how to pay for the program's expansion: "He has his position. The House Republicans have their position."
House Democratic leaders last week said they had addressed many criticisms of the bill and put the revised version to a vote. Most Republicans, encouraged by Boehner and Blunt, rejected the changes, which some called politically motivated.
The bill passed, 265-142. Opposition from 141 Republicans kept it from reaching a two-thirds majority.
The Senate gave the legislation a veto-proof majority from the start, with the enthusiastic backing of senior Republicans such as Sens. Charles Grassley of Iowa and Orrin Hatch of Utah.
Federal Study Offers Dire Outlook on Child Insurance
By Robert Pear
The New York Times
Wednesday 31 October 2007
Washington - Twenty-one states will run out of money for children's health insurance in the coming year, and at least nine of those states will exhaust their allotments in March if Congress simply continues spending at current levels, a new federal study says.
The findings added urgency to bipartisan talks on Capitol Hill intended to overcome an impasse over expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program.
Top House Republicans, including Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the minority leader, met Tuesday with senators of both parties, including the chairman of the Finance Committee, Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana, to seek a compromise.
Their goal is to revise a bill, vetoed by President Bush, to pick up Republican support in the House and gain enough votes to override another veto threatened by the president.
Mr. Bush complained that White House officials were not included in the discussions.
"After going alone and going nowhere, Congress should instead work with the administration on a bill that puts poor children first," Mr. Bush said Tuesday.
States, unsure of federal money, are drafting contingency plans in case it runs short.
Officials in charge of the child health program in California said Tuesday that they were adopting rules to allow the state to create a waiting list and to remove some of the 1.1 million children already on the rolls.
"The stalemate in Washington is having a real impact on children here," said Lesley S. Cummings, executive director of the agency that runs the child health program in California. "Given continued uncertainty, we will have to start dropping children from the program — 64,000 a month, starting in January — to save money. This is getting less and less hypothetical."
According to the new study, from the Congressional Research Service, the nine states that will run out of money by March are Alaska, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Rhode Island.
The federal budget for the program is $5 billion for the current fiscal year, which began Oct. 1. But states, by their own estimates, expect to spend $7.6 billion. To continue coverage for people now enrolled in the 21 states would require an extra $1.6 billion just for the current fiscal year, the study said.
The bill vetoed by Mr. Bush, like a similar bill passed last week by the House, would provide $9 billion in the current fiscal year, or 80 percent more than the current allotments, the Congressional Research Service said. Allotments would more than double in 14 states, including Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Mississippi and North Carolina. In recent years, spending in these states has often exceeded allotments.
The Senate passed the original child health bill last month, 67 to 29, with 18 Republicans voting for it. Two of those Republicans, Senators Charles E. Grassley of Iowa and Orrin G. Hatch of Utah, helped write the bill and have been negotiating with House members of both parties to round up Republican support for a revised version of the bill.
Tension among Republicans burst into the open on Tuesday as the Senate Republican whip, Trent Lott of Mississippi, complained that the Bush administration and Senate Republican leaders had been excluded from the negotiations.
"There are a multitude of problems with the bill" and "huge problems" with the negotiations, Mr. Lott said. He chided Mr. Hatch and Mr. Grassley, saying they had sought a deal on the child health program without adequately consulting him or the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.
Mr. Lott and Mr. McConnell voted against the bill last month.
"The biggest problem," Mr. Lott said Tuesday, "is that we are still talking about a $35 billion" expansion of the program over the next five years, "instead of trying to come to a compromise on the money necessary to cover poor children first."
The Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, said Republican leaders appeared to be more interested in blocking Democratic accomplishments than in getting a deal on the child health bill. The Republicans, Mr. Reid said, are trying to "slow, stall and stop the legislative process."
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