The Senate overwhelmingly passed the S-CHIP reauthorization and expansion today, 66-32. All of the nays were Republicans. Here’s a roll call of the GOP crumb-bums up for re-election in 2010:
Bennett (R-UT)
Bunning (R-KY)
Burr (R-NC)
Coburn (R-OK)
Crapo (R-ID)
DeMint (R-SC)
Grassley (R-IA)
Gregg (R-NH)
Isakson (R-GA)
McCain (R-AZ)
Shelby (R-AL)
Vitter (R-LA)
Never will you find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. Fortunately, though, quite a few of these troglodytes are vulnerable or are weighing retirement: Bunning, Burr, Grassley, Gregg & Vitter. I look forward to seeing them all get bashed over the head with their callous cruelty toward children. They deserve it.
It’s amazing how vile most of the left are towards people with different opinions than them. I can’t wait until you get bashed over the head.
was he asleep last November? If any Republican was likely to shift towards the center on politically easy votes, I thought it would be him. Bill was going to pass anyways. Liddy Dole got tossed out by 7%. Burr doesn’t have a chance next year.
of the version last Congress. But because he might face a primary challange, he’s now going to exaggerate his objections to LPRs potentially getting benefits in this version
First the Watchmen video now Star Wars references . . .
What is this? Sci-fi night at SSP?
That’s a surprise. Guess he doesn’t care anymore since he’s retiring in 2010.
Also interesting that Murkowski keeps voting with Dems on big bills considering she should be far more worried about a challenge in the primary than in the general.
I see that Obama’s new potential buddy and Cab.member hasn’t really changed his stripes after all.
please run, Roy Cooper.
Also, Grassley needs to get a serious challenge. This issue alone and his likely opposition to the stimulus, healthcare reform and energy reform in a state that was deep blue for Obama can’t go unchallenged no matter how “safe” he is.
Once again, as I wrote concerning the House version of this post, I think there are good reasons to vote “no” on this version of S-CHIP. As much as I favor expanding health insurance for children, I oppose taxing smokers to pay for it (the legislation pays for the expansion by raising the federal cigarette tax). If it’s something most of us favor, it’s something most of us should be willing to support financially; that’s key part of advocating responsible government because in the end the government isn’t “them,” it’s “us,” and we should take responsibility for the things we say we want out of government. This S-CHIP bill doesn’t do that.
It’s too easy to favor government action that requires nothing of us, and it was legion during the Bush administration. It was too easy to go to war when most of us did not have to serve and none of us were asked to pay for it. It was too easy to support the Bush tax cuts when none of us had to give up any programs to make them fiscally responsible. It was too easy to tack on a prescription drug benefit to Medicare by adding to the debt. And it’s too easy to support insuring kids as long as someone else picks up the tab.
(And that’s not even considering the tension between raising the cigarette taxes to pay for the program and raising the tax to discourage smoking. If the tax is a form of “sin tax” designed to deter smoking, then a successful implementation will eventually dry up the revenue the program needs because fewer people will by cigarettes. If the revenue stream depends on people continuing to smoke, then we’re taxing people for their addiction.)
Thing we say we favor are things we should be willing to do something about. The government isn’t “them,” it’s “us.” I don’t want to just replace an irresponsible Republican philosophy with an irresponsible Democratic one. We need to have a serious discussion about what we are as a nation willing and unwilling to pay for. I think Democrats will win more of those arguments than they will lose, though they will not win all of them. But pretending that we can just expand programs at someone else’s expense is simply not a sustainable form of government.
If this were the only way to expand S-CHIP, I suppose I might have voted for it, but I would have held my nose doing so. And so I would not necessarily label those who voted no as “crumb-bums.” Obama talked about responsibility in his inaugural address. I think it’s time we started to try practicing it.