Timothy Smith/TNS/ZUMA
Dylan Scott writes today about the the Children’s Health Insurance Program. Funding ran out last month, and Republicans have so far shown no inclination to extend it:
CHIP’s funding expired on October 1, and the program has now gone four weeks without being extended. States are on the clock: The Georgetown University Center for Children and Families reported that six states expect to run out of money by the end of the year or by early January.
….You would think that would motivate Congress to act. But instead, Republicans and Democrats in the House are digging in, feuding over — just as CHIP advocates feared — Obamacare and other programs….The problem is offsets — spending cuts to pay for CHIP’s funding for the next five years. Congress needs to find about $8 billion in savings.
This is a good time to remind everyone that Republicans just passed a budget that contained instructions for a net $1.5 trillion tax cut that will mostly benefit corporations and the rich. But $8 billion in net spending increases to provide medical care for kids? Sorry. Can’t be done. Gotta watch the deficit, you understand.
Or maybe they could fund CHIP and settle for a $1.492 trillion tax cut? That’s out of the question, of course.
At times like this I wish I were a religious man. At least then I’d feel some sense that eventually these meanspirited bastards would pay for their sins.
