On July 18th, President George W. Bush declared War on Kids. He threatened to veto legislation moving through Congress that would authorize a $35-billion increase over a 5-year period for the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. According to the July 19th edition of the Washington Post, www.washingtonpost.com members of his own party, including Senators Charles Grassley, Orrin Hatch and others, who worked with democrats in cobbling together the bi-partisan legislation, were rebuffed by the White House when they tried to change the President’s mind. He would not waver. He stayed the course. Sure, over 12-million kids don’t have health insurance, and yeah many of them go hungry every now and then, but hey, there’s the War on Terror, and those kids have to be protected from “suiciders” and “evil-doers.” There are priorities.
Since the Iraq War now has a War Czar, and since we’ve had a Drug Czar in the War on Drugs, one supposes that this new war also needs a Czar, a “War On Kids Czar.” You have to find someone with unique qualifications. How about Atlanta Falcons quarterback, Michael Vick? He might be available for awhile. But then maybe he’s not interested in kids, only dogs.
Or maybe former Defense Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, who is apparently languishing away in the DefCon Acres Retirement Home. He might be interested. After all, the only time we heard him talking about kids was when he referred to them as “collateral damage.”
Rumsfeld guided Bush policy that rejected out-of-hand the International Land Mines Treaty, also known as the Ottawa Convention, www.icbl.org/treaty. 155 nations have signed it, 40 have not, including the United States, which by the way shares that standing with “the Axis of Evil” nations of Iraq, Iran and North Korea. The Treaty is designed to stop nations from using deadly landmines that have a particularly cruel afterlife. The majority of deaths and injuries from legacy landmines left buried in old battlegrounds, are suffered by children. Same goes for “bomblets,” those cute-looking little anti-personnel devices about the size of baseballs that are spread by the hundreds over a wide area by one single bomb or missile. Kids just can’t resist them.
President Bush said he is opposed to increasing the aid to America’s kids in need for “philosophical reasons.” Sometimes in this administration, it’s hard to recognize the truth, but not in this case. He’s spot-on. The Bush philosophy is simple. Those who have everything should get more, and those who have nothing should get less. On this point he should never be misunderestimated.
There’s a practical consideration at work here too. If you’re going to have an all-volunteer military, then you have to have a steady supply of recruits. Everyone knows that nearly all of them come from hardscrabble backgrounds. You have to make sure their educational opportunities are limited, to make it nearly impossible for them to find decent jobs, and guarantee that health care benefits are afforded only to those who can afford them. See, it’s sort of like the old “keep ‘em barefoot and pregnant” philosophy. In other words, it makes people desperate enough to do just about anything, like join up. In the military, you can get 3-squares-a-day, a small pay check, PX privileges, guaranteed health care, (at least until you become a veteran,) and most of all, if you’re deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, which you can bet your M-16 A-1 assault rifle on happening more than once, you’ll increase your chances of having the honor of being blown up for your country by a roadside bomb. Just don’t expect to find 72 virgins waiting for you in the afterlife.
Mr. Bush has turned thumbs down on raising the federal minimum wage or providing adequate funding for any number of domestic programs that help kids directly, like Head Start, or indirectly, like food stamps. For years now, the government has been urging folks to get off welfare, which they would rather not be on anyway, by encouraging them to hold down 2 minimum-wage jobs with no benefits. That creates de facto neglect of their kids. Then the government offers up those welfare dollars in the form of “tax incentives” (please read that as corporate welfare) to huge corporations which are struggling to pay their CEOs a paltry $360-million a year on average. As Michael Douglas’s character in the 1987 movie, “Wall Street” said, “greed is good,” at least for what Mr. Bush might call “the greeders.”
A little perspective always helps. $360-million is roughly 20,000 times the poverty line income for a family of four, 30,000 times the annual pay for a farm worker or a fast food entry-level job. The CEO and his kids have platinum-level health insurance provided for them. The farm worker and her kids get criticized for wanting help from the grossly under-funded Child Health Insurance Program.
President Bush, who adopted the religious-right’s spiel about “family values” never misses an opportunity to help many American families get into and stay in poverty. See, that‘s where the Bush “Faith-Based” program comes in handy, because it funnels money to soup kitchens where struggling single moms can take their kids to get a hot meal every so often. In other words, it’s what any compassionate conservative would do to make sure there’s No Child Left Behind to make a sacrifice for the war.
One thing’s for sure. Saving $35-billion by not increasing the federal funding for the Children’s Health Insurance Program will be put to good use. At roughly $12-billion-per-month for the surge in Iraq, that savings will pay for 11 more weeks of military operations there.
John Wydra