Bush Vetoes SCHIP. Again.

Compassionate conservatism blah blah blah:

For the second time, President Bush has vetoed a major expansion of the children's health insurance program, making it clear that the debate will linger as a political issue throughout 2008.

…Bush issued his veto on Wednesday, saying "our nation's goal should be to move children who have no health insurance to private coverage—not to move children who already have private health insurance to government coverage."
Never mind that there's no evidence that anyone has done that under the existing program or would do it under the expanded program, and never mind that it goes against all common sense.

Can anyone remember the last time we had an honest debate about any policy in this country? I can't.

And we should be outraged about that, except we've collectively convinced ourselves that "all politicians are the same." Well, maybe they are in this country, but turn on the British parliament some time and give it a watch. Yeah, there's grandstanding and soapboxing and hyperbole, but the policy debates are basically honest. We're letting ourselves be screwed out of a vibrant democracy by people who routinely lie to us because we're too dumb to notice or too jaded to care.

[H/T Petulant.]

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