Byron Dorgan: “The SCHIP program would spend $7 billion a year for 5 years. That is $35 billion. All of it is paid for. None of it is…”

“The SCHIP program would spend $7 billion a year for 5 years. That is $35 billion. All of it is paid for. None of it is contributing one penny to the debt. The result of that spending? The 3.8 million children who at this point have no health insurance coverage would now be fully covered with health insurance. The President seemed to, when he vetoed the legislation, be saying: I am going to be the guardian of the Federal Treasury and the taxpayers' checkbook. This is big-government bureaucracy--socialized medicine, in fact. This is fully paid for, $7 billion a year. Isn't it the case that the President has requested two things of us? One is already here, and the other will come next week. One is $145 billion in emergency funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, not a penny of it paid for all this year, and on top of that, we believe another roughly $44 billion supplemental. So that will be a $189 billion emergency supplemental this year. In other words, $7 billion for kids is too much; $189 billion, which will bring us somewhere close to two-thirds of a trillion dollars, the President has requested we spend, not a penny of it paid for.”