Equivocating SCHIP

It's very difficult to be diplomatic in the face of outrageousness. Politics is always a business where the bar setting the standard of offense is set so low that it gets knocked off if anything resembling a direct statement is uttered. The common term is "political correctness," because insensitive remarks are perceived to stand in the way of logic. Political correctness has its places: we no longer use the word "Negro" to describe Black Americans, and the word "Oriental" is gradually following suit. (Notice how I capitalized "Black;" that's a form of PC.) There are some detractors who insist that being PC is tantamount to Orwellian "Newspeak." Others are just mad because they can't tell ethnic or dirty jokes in public anymore.

So how does being PC this have to do with SCHIP and the latest Presidential veto? Everything.

The President vetoed the bill to expand SCHIP by claiming that it was another step toward government-run health care. In other words, placing health care in control of the government takes away from the capitalist nature on which this nation has grown and defended. Allowing SCHIP to be expanded is just a slippery slope toward communism and the GULAG. Republican defenders of the Presidential veto claim that the increased tax on cigarettes is inherently self-destructive, because the higher price of cigarettes will compel smokers to quit, thereby cutting off the very funding for the health care program. In other words, it's a legislative Catch-22.

Cynics would say that the bill to expand SCHIP was pushed by a Democratic Congress to trap the Republican Party by a) getting them to vote for the bill and thereby (hypocritically) go against the GOP standard of reducing taxation and governmental interference, or b) by getting them to stick to those Republican principles and be mocked as child-hating politicians who are indifferent to the nation's posterity.

No one would ever argue that government officials are 100% pure-of-heart, whether they are Democrat or Republican. The reason for that is political correctness. I personally believe that the SCHIP bill was intended as a "gotcha!" move on the part of Democrats, and that Republicans who voted for the bill were doing so to keep their jobs, not out of any love of health-care expansion. But because of being PC, no one in the government can assert the truth as their reasons for support for SCHIP. To do so would cost them politically. It would be politically incorrect.

Now let's step back from being PC and look at the results should SCHIP be ratified. First, poor kids would get guaranteed health care. Second, the tax on cigarettes would compel some smokers to quit. I'm fairly certain that there will be plenty of nicotine addicts who will continue to fund the program. So what's the downside?

I have a message to the President and the Republicans who sided with the Bush veto. Sirs and madams, I urge you to reconsider. Government social programs for the benefit of the American people are not going to lead to Stalinism. We have public education, Medicare and Medicaid, water and waste programs, and yes, welfare. These programs are consistent with the language of the preamble of the Constitution, which proclaims to "promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity..." You will lose your jobs and be vilified in history as men and women who couldn't trust the American people to not degenerate into a totalitarian society. If you are wondering where the money will come from besides taxes, I would just like to point out that we are spending around $25 million a day for our efforts in Iraq. The implications are clear, but I know you cannot state them outright.

It wouldn't be politically correct.