The President's Veto of the SCHIP Extension

Floor Speech

(Ms. SCHAKOWSKY asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 minute.)

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Mr. Speaker, the deed is done. The President just vetoed the Children's Health Insurance Program. He is asking for $190 billion for the war in Iraq and Afghanistan and yet vetoed $35 billion that would provide health care to 10 million low-income American children over the next 5 years.

Let's be perfectly clear. The President is refusing to spend $7 billion a year on children's health while insisting on $10 billion a month in Iraq. The President and Republicans in Congress say that we can't afford this bill, but where were the fiscal conservatives when the President demanded hundreds of billions of dollars for the war in Iraq? He along with many of the Republicans in Congress are willing to throw these hundreds of billions of dollars into a disastrous war, and yet when it comes to providing health care to children, they say we don't have the money.

The truth is we do have the money and, in fact, the children's health bill is fully paid for, unlike the half a trillion dollars we have already spent on this war.

It is time for us to say you are either for covering uninsured American children or you are with a President who prefers to spend this money on an endless war.

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