Child care veto was good

Dear editor:

President Bush recently vetoed a spending bill that included the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). The Democrats immediately criticized the move as calloused and cruel, towards children I presume.

This was a very important move by our President and a smart one at that. SCHIP was established four years after "HillaryCare" expired, and was to be a modest program that would expand coverage to children in families with incomes up to twice the poverty level.

That would be $40,000 for a family of four in today's dollars.

One decade and $40 billion later, states have exploited loopholes and transformed SCHIP into a far more expensive program. Families with annual incomes as high as $82,000, their parents and even some childless adults are now eligible.

Your liberal lawmakers now want to include "New Populations" by increasing eligibility for children up to 24 years old with incomes as high as 400 percent of the federal poverty level.

In the Senate version, SCHIP's annual funding level would triple by 2012 to about $15 billion. Also included is a provision that no ID is required -- a most important point if you are an illegal alien and want the American taxpayer to cover all of your healthcare.

It turns out that the Democratic Congress was merely trying to insert a socialist healthcare program that would probably be expanded to a nationwide program at a later date.

Desperately searching for a way to acquire your money to fund the afore- mentioned health insurance program, one of many tax hikes, Nancy and the Gang decided on was to raise the tax for a minority of taxpayers. The local cigar purveyor on 2nd Street may be shocked to learn that the "Party of Takers" voted to include a 20,000 percent tax increase on cigars into the bill that was vetoed. That's right, 20,000 percent! In a move reminiscent of the "Luxury Tax" of the early 1990's that bankrupted the yacht business, this little known tax would have raised the tax on a box of cigars to $250. I'm sure the businesses that rely on fine cigars would have quickly followed the path of the yacht business. Although the president did not veto the bill soley because of the cigar tax, it is important to note that the president's veto power is sometimes the only thing protecting us from the socialist left's out of control money grab.

Looking at the party of takers wish list, you may be surprised to learn that average taxpayers face an increase in their tax bill of more than $3,000. In some states, the increase in taxes will be more than $5,000.

The president who seems to be the "demon" of our newspaper is the only protection you, the taxpayer, has until the next election. There's something to think about. But there is a silver lining in the Democrats' tax hikes. Most of the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) increase will be shouldered by the blue states. It seems that most capital gains go to the states that are traditionally considered Democratic states.

Yes, the less affluent states generally vote Republican.

And another silver lining is that most of the benefits of the tax increases will go to red states.

Since most government benefits tend to migrate to the less affluent states, that money will spread to Republican controlled states. Twelve of the fifteen states that face the highest tax burden are blue states.

Since World War Two, the tax burden on America has been squelched over and over again by taxpayer revolt. We never learn -- once we get the taxes down to a livable level, we vote in the socialist Democrats again. After WWII, the federal tax burden was about 16 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

Everytime the tax burden would inch up close to 19 percent, the taxpayers would respond, and down it would come. Four times the tax burden was more than 19 percent of GDP (the early '50s, the late '60s, 1979-82, and during Bill Clinton's second term).

At each of these events, the percentage of taxpayers who thought their tax bill was too high would jump to 60 percent to 70 percent.

The taxes came down, twice by Congress responding, and twice by the voters voting in presidents who campaigned on reducing taxes. If for some strange reason, the tax hikes do go through, there will be another taxpayer rebellion, and the taxes will come down again, but only after you and I have suffered financially with no return on that investment.

The approval rating for our Democratic Congress is down to 11 percent. When it hit 18 percent in late August, it was tied for the lowest rating since 1992 when both Houses of Congress were held by the Democrats.

One Idaho Congressman said after four years of Nancy Pelosi, the voters will be glad to come back to the Republicans. By the look of these ratings, he was right.

In closing let me state that socialism has never ever, ever worked any where in the world. It may feel good to have Nancy stand in front of a group of children and call on America to provide free health care, but the cold hard facts of life are that socialism has never worked and never will.

The Democrats remind me of the Communists in France -- no matter how bad Communism has been, they continue to vote for and support the Communist Party. No matter how many times socialism has been tried and failed, our Democrats keep pushing the socialist agenda on free, capilalist America.

William Best