Can't Override Bush for SCHIP

The bill that was proposed to fill the gap in the U.S. health care system, reaching out to middle class families, failed to make an override of President Bush's veto on Thursday. The bill asked for $35 million over the next five years to fill this gap and provide people that live above poverty level and below high income status. This $35 million dollar cost was the part that had Bush sold on a veto. Supposedly, this huge amount of money was supposed to be funded by a 61-cent increase in tobacco tax, but wait.

The House of Representatives lost the two-thirds majority mark (273 to 156) by 13 votes, and this was probably for the good. The amount of money that would be piled onto the Iraq bill is not very logical at this time. Maybe there should be some sort of expansion of the health care system, but we don't need another fall-out like the Social Security program.

Clearly, 61-cents is not a going to be enough over five years to cover a $35 billion dollar budget, especially if the purchase of tobacco will drop as proven in the past. Basically we would be making the same on tobacco tax as before, because less people will be using it after the tax increase. Then, the government will not have enough money to cover this and force them to pull money from other programs or raise taxes, in other words, we would rob Peter to pay Paul.

Lastly, I would recommend to cut back more on social programs that are not providing what they should, and give smaller businesses and companies tax breaks to cover more of these health expenses. Maybe even make a deductible on middle income families to be able to have the resources for their child’s health care. This would accomplish what they are seeking to do as middle class families making as much as $83,000 should be able to manage their money enough to participate in employee benefit programs or purchase supplemental insurance for their children which is done by a lot of America already. We the people should stop and look at what we spend when we make up to $83,300 and be able to support our children.

Source:
CNN
URL - http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/10/18/schip/index.html
(CNN's Deirdre Walsh and Jessica Yellin contributed to the report at the source.)

N. Korea's Six Nation Agreement

Within the next couple of weeks this month, N. Korean will begin showing progress in disabling nuclear facilities that were first discovered by the U.S. in 2002. This is a six nation agreement that shows one small, but great step to shorting the list of terror sponsoring nations. This agreement will, hopefully, disclose N. Korea’s amount plutonium and allow nuclear scientists from the United States, China, and Russia to assess the progress and help the countries understand more of what went on, and what’s going on the end this nuclear program.
The standard for how irreversible the dismantlement would be, has gone from irreversible to allowing N. Korea to be able to re-engage the facilities in about a year. So, even though they are “ending” the nuclear program, the very sporadic N. Korean government could easily start up hell again.

What played a part in motivating the N. Korean Government to end it’s program was that it would allow an economical advantage to the government that is probably much needed in a place were 2 cars on a single street is traffic. Though, you have to be grateful that President Bush is willing to sit down and negotiate with such an extreme nation and leader to talk about global affairs. It seems that our president is taking the civil way of approaching issues and I think it will pay off. Especially when you have such a powerful country ending such a program, it displaces a sense of action that other countries, hopefully Iran in the Middle East, will pick up on as something positive to everyone.

Already north and south leaders of Korea have met and negotiated opening a joint are for the countries to use for fishing and trade in the Yellow Sea, which has been disputed waters between the two countries. This is just one of many steps from N. Korea that are leading to possible great outcomes, and South Korean officials are already publicly acknowledging them. Also, if the agreement continues to be carried out as expected, the exit from North Korea from the terror list would open up trade in the United States.

One other outcome that needs to be addressed is that between Japan and N. Korea. The Japanese are still questioning abductions that were committed by the North Korean government but there has been no sign of an discussion or date set for any sort of Q & A between these countries.

Overall, this is a great agreement, criticize it or not, at the least of all our problems in global terror, we can now say that we are negotiating and carrying out a crack down on nuclear and terror sponsoring nations. Also, I think our president is doing a great job in doing so in the middle of his meetings, mostly consumed of Iraqi policy and the pleasing of never ending hate toward his every step.

Article Sources used for information:

The Washington Post - http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/02/AR2007100202223.html?sid=ST2007100201132

The New York Times - http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/03/washington/03diplo.html