Weekly Update (9/28/07)

Democrats in House Pass Children's Health Insurance Bill
This week, the House of Representative passed a bill to expand the popular State Children's Health Insurance Program, with a vote of 265 to 159. All eight of DAPAC's representatives in Congress voted in favor of the bill. Forty-five Republicans crossed party lines to vote with the Democrats on this important bill, but the majority still falls short of the 290 votes needed to override Bush's intended veto.

The program currently covers six million children whose families earn too much to qualify for Medicaid, but too little to afford private coverage. The program expires at the end of September, and the new bill expands the program to cover more children, and would be subsidized by a 61 cent levy on each pack of cigarettes sold. The bill for expansion has widespread support, including endorsements from United Way of America, the national YMCA, and even America's Health Insurance Plans, which is the largest insurance lobbying group in the nation.

Still, Bush remains dead set against this bill, and many Republican Congress members have followed him. Bush calls the bill “part of the Democrats' incremental plan toward government-run healthcare for all Americans.” Speaker Nancy Pelosi has promised to fight Bush on this issue, and commented, “This legislation will haunt his again and again and again ... We will continue to work in a bipartisan fashion to put bills on the president's desk and see how long he can hold a veto-proof majority.”

Congress Gets Set for Another War Spending Showdown
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates appeared before Congress this week to ask for an additional $42 billion for the military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, on top of the $147 billion already requested for the 2008 fiscal year. Gates also spoke about the need for a “long-term presence” of US troops in Iraq, but failed to give specifics on what this means exactly.

Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV), chairman of the Appropriations Committee, vowed that Congress would not be a “rubber stamp” for Bush's policies and said, “The president and supporters claim that we're now finally on the cusp of progress and that we must continue to stay the course. I've heard that before ... We cannot create a democracy at the point of a gun.”

DAPAC only supports Democratic candidates for the House of Representatives who will take immediate steps to end the war in Iraq.

This Week's Poll
On September 25th, Gallup released a new poll showing that the Democratic party is maintaining a solid image advantage over the GOP. Of those polled, 53% have a favorable view of the Democratic party, while only 38% have a favorable view of the Republicans. These results are very similar to the ratings of both parties since April 2006.

A recent significant shift has been how respondents rate the parties when it comes to the issue of security. For the first time since 2002, more Americans now say that Democrats will do a better job than Republicans protecting the nation from security threats: 47% to 42%.