SCHIP crashes

The House yesterday sustained President Bush's veto of a $35 billion expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program, aka SCHIP. Democrats and Republicans quickly started scrambling for the moral high ground and pointing fingers at their children-hating colleagues on the other side of the aisle.

The rhetoric was fairly harsh among Pennsylvania politicos:

From Sen. Bob Casey, the freshman Democrat:

"President Bush and a minority of House members who today upheld his veto are jeopardizing the health care of millions of children. The only thing worse than the veto itself has been the misleading rhetoric used by the President to make ideological arguments.

"This program has worked well to provide insurance coverage for 6.6 million children and the bipartisan legislation would add another 3.8 million. Why is President Bush against health coverage for 10 million kids?"

From Rep. Bill Shuster, R-Blair:

"Today, the House voted to sustain a veto on legislation that would have taken a once universally embraced children's health program and expanded it at the cost of low-income families and American taxpayers.

"Let there be no mistake, I strongly support the SCHIP program. It continues to do great things to fill the gap between Medicaid and private insurance. But the Democrats' plan would have taken a good program and ruined it through big government fraud and waste.

"The ugly truth is that the Democrats decided to put politics before policy and inflate a bipartisan children's health care program to the point that anyone with any fiscal responsibility would be pressed to oppose it. No one in Congress wants to take health care away from children. Anyone who says otherwise is more interested in distorting the truth for political gain than supporting what was once a bipartisan and universally embraced health care program."

From Rep. Jason Altmire, D-McCandless:

"I am extremely disappointed with the majority of my Republican colleagues who continue to stubbornly follow President Bush in denying health care coverage to 10 million children. They stand in the way of progress.

"We passed a bipartisan bill, supported by 43 Governors and over 270 organizations, in both the House and Senate. It's a strong bill that builds on a highly successful program. It helps thousands of Pennsylvania's working families -- who make too much to qualify for Medicaid, but not enough to afford private health insurance -- get health care coverage for their children. And it's fully paid for, adding no additional cost to the taxpayers."

And Rep. John Peterson, R-Venango, had a scathing opinion piece in the Post-Gazette today, chastising the paper's editorial page for a "harebrained" criticism of his stand against the SCHIP expansion.

"The bill's shortcomings could have been avoided had the Democratic leadership sought bipartisan input. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi cavalierly dismissed the president's invitation to find a compromise agreement that he and congressional Republicans could support, instead choosing to perpetuate the political grandstanding we are witnessing today. For these reasons, I voted to sustain the president's veto."

Early Returns thinks Mr. Peterson is overreaching here. Forty-four House Republicans supported the bill, including two of Mr. Peterson's Western Pennsylvania colleagues: Rep. Phil English of Erie and Rep. Tim Murphy of Upper St. Clair. In the Senate, Sen. Arlen Specter was a backer, and the bill had a veto-proof majority.

Casey is feeling green

Pennsylvania's junior senator this week tucked a provision into a bill that would create the "Climate Change Worker Assistance Program," giving American workers a chance to train for new manufacturing jobs in a much hotter world (such as building solar panels).

"I come from a state with a lot of coal and a lot of manufacturing," Mr. Casey said. "The future of Pennsylvania and of my constituents is closely linked to the future of both of these industries. We have a moral obligation to slow, stop and reverse our contribution to global warming, but I am also optimistic that we can do this in a way that protects workers and creates new manufacturing jobs."

According to his office: "The program would help to provide worker training to give workers skills needed for new industry that would be created to help meet pollution reduction goals. The program would also provide temporary health care and income assistance to workers who lose their jobs because of manufacturing continuing to move overseas to countries that have little or no environmental standards."

It is part of a global warming reduction bill introduced this week by Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., and Sen. John Warner, R-Va.

Philly for Hillary

Philadelphia is fertile ground for Sen. Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign -- at least in the cash race.

Since the beginning of the year, more than 70 percent of the campaign money raised in and around Pennsylvania's largest city has gone to Democrats, with Mrs. Clinton collecting more than $1.5 million, according to today's Philadelphia Inquirer.

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani has raised almost $825,000 there, more than all of his Republican rivals combined.

In all, about $3.9 million has gone to Democratic candidates and $1.6 million has gone to Republicans.

First Published: October 19, 2007, 4:30 p.m.