Washington, DC - Madam Speaker, I thank our Chair of the committee for allowing me to speak. Sitting here, waiting in line and listening, I am amazed at the rhetoric I hear. We had Members from our minority side talk about we have to worry about saving for the stimulus next week, and we want to vote for that. But it is amazing they want to save money from the SCHIP program to pay for a stimulus, and at the same time they don’t worry about paying for the billions of dollars a month that we are spending in Iraq. It is amazing how frugal they are when they want to be.

Madam Speaker, the President’s veto of the children’s health care bill once again shows it is playing politics rather than embracing an opportunity to fix a system that is in need of repair. The reason we are here is over 10 years ago this House and Senate and the President at that time signed the bill. The issue was we need to cover the children first. Instead of signing this piece of legislation into law, President Bush twice vetoed a bill to provide insurance coverage to 10 million low-income America children of working parents.

The administration’s reason for this veto just doesn’t stand up. No Federal funding will be spent on undocumented immigrants in this bill. If they are, they are on the State’s, the State of Texas or whoever else, to pay for it if they allow illegal immigrants on the CHIP plan. In 1 year, childless adults are taken off the SCHIP program, even though this administration issued waivers to allow them to be on it. Only lowest income children are covered, with a prohibition on coverage for over 300 percent of poverty, and still the President vetoed it.

We continue to spend billions of dollars a month in Iraq, and we can’t cover the lowest income children. Energy costs are up. Everything is up. Our economy is weakening, and the number of unemployed and uninsured in this country is rising. Let’s at least cover the children with health care. Let’s vote to override this misguided veto.