The Hightower Report

SAVE THE GOP FROM SOCIALISM

It's always impressive to see a politician take an unbending stand on principle, so I salute George W. for going against popular opinion by vetoing the State Children's Health Insurance Program bill, which would have extended health coverage to some 6 million uninsured children in our country.

Bush said that what irked him about this children's health proposal is the principle of providing government-financed coverage, which he derided as "federalized" medicine. George, you see, is a die-hard privatization ideologue, and he insists that people should get their health care from the free market, not the government. The vast majority of his Republican colleagues in Congress agreed, voting to uphold his veto of the children's bill.

This news prompted Alan, one of our stalwart readers in Fort Collins, Colo., to suggest a national campaign in support of this principled stand the Republicans in Washington, D.C. have taken. Since Bush and his GOP allies don't believe in federalized medicine, Alan says it is our duty to free them of the burden of having their own health coverage paid for by us taxpayers! As a matter of principle, we must take away their government health plans and let them buy their own in the free market.

This idea offers two pluses: 1) Taxpayers will no longer have to pay benefits to politicians who are ideologically opposed to them, and 2) the money saved can be redirected to the millions of American children without health coverage.

If Alan's idea appeals to you, call the GOP congressional conference and urge that its members give up their "federalized" health plans: 202/225-5107. And while you're at it, tell them to forego their socialized government retirement money, too. After all, it's the principle of the thing.

$2.4 TRILLION AND COUNTING

Shall we check the numbers again on George W.'s misbegotten war? For today, let's leave aside such depressing counts as the ever-rising numbers of dead and mangled and just focus on the dollars he's dumping into his foreign hostilities.

The Congressional Budget Office – a nonpartisan entity – recently reported that, as of now, Bush and company's badly bungled wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will cost us $2.4 trillion by the year 2017, counting such ongoing costs as veterans' health care. The vast preponderance of that is chargeable to the Iraq debacle. But, gosh, how much is $2.4 trillion anyway? It's impossible for my small brain to get hold of a number that big.

So think of it this way: It comes to $8,000 for you, $8,000 more for your spouse, and $8,000 for each of your children. In fact, it comes to $8,000 for every one of America's 300 million people. Maybe you can think of other things you and your family would rather spend $8,000 apiece on than Bush's war.

But that's the happy part of George W.'s warmongering: We don't have to pay for it! Instead, he has generously put the whole thing on the national credit card – so your kids, grandkids, and great-grandkids will foot the bill. The interest payments alone on this $2.4 trillion debt will tally more than $700 billion during the next 10 years.

Wait – isn't this the same George W. who's charging Congress with fiscal irresponsibility for passing a law to extend health coverage to millions of America's children? I wonder if he knows how much health care $700 billion would buy?

Bush is a spendaholic, and he won't stop. What we have to do is pressure members of the Democratic Congress, demanding that they finally use their power of the purse to stop him for us.