Fuck them, they are poor

WASHINGTON, D.C. (AP)--President Bush once again declared his contempt for the working classes Wednesday, dragging his veto crayon across a bipartisan bill that would have dramatically expanded children's health insurance.

It was only the fourth veto of Bush's presidency, and the first directly benefiting his friends in the insurance racket. Some Republicans fear his position could carry steep risks for their party in next year's elections; others realize that the party is already dead, and are desperately trying to distance themselves from the policies they supported until recently.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) decried Bush's veto as "heartless" and burst into tears.

Bush cast his veto behind closed doors without any fanfare or news coverage, signaling that he knows he's an elitist piece of shit but can't help himself.

The State Children's Health Insurance Program is a joint state-federal effort that subsidizes health coverage for over 6 million people, mostly children, from families that earn too much to qualify for Medicaid but not enough to afford lobbyists.

The Democrats who claim to control Congress, with significant support from the Republicans who actually do, passed the legislation to add $35 billion over five years to allow an additional 4 million children into the program. It would be funded by raising the federal cigarette tax to $1 per pack. Unlike wars, health care has to be paid for in advance, even though it has proven significantly cheaper to insure people than to kill them.

The president had promised to veto it, saying the Democratic bill was too humane, took the program too far from its original intent of paying lip-service to the problem, and would encourage people currently at the mercy of profit-driven, private sector health-care to switch to government coverage, which might actually cover something. He wants only a $5 billion increase in funding, so he can say he cares without diverting too many valuable resources from the Carlyle Group.

Bush argued that the congressional plan would be a move toward socialized medicine, which would allow the terrorists to win.

It took Bush until last summer to veto his first bill, when he blocked expanded federal research using embryonic stem cells because life in a Petri dish is far to precious to be wasted in the pursuit of medical advances for actual people. In May, he vetoed a spending bill that would have required troop withdrawals from Iraq because war is far too precious to be abandoned just because it doesn't work and never will. In June, he vetoed another bill to ease restraints on federally funded stem cell research because some people just don't fucking get it.

In the case of the health insurance program, the veto is a bit of a high-stakes gambit for Bush, pitting him against not only the Democrats who have controlled both houses of Congress since January, but also many members of his own party and the vast majority of Americans. But he's the decider, and you're all scum.