She really didn’t say, “Let them eat cake.” This has been attributed to Marie-Antoinette (1755-93), the Queen consort of Louis XVI, and she is supposed to have said this when she was told that the French populace had no bread to eat. That’s cold. That’s heartless. And that’s tone deaf – she went to the guillotine for that remark, or at least for her attitude. Fittingly, the father of political conservatism, Edmund Burke, was a tad upset –
It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then the dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like the morning star full of life and splendor and joy. 0h, what a revolution! and what a heart must I have, to contemplate without emotion that elevation and that fall! Little did I dream, when she added titles of veneration to those of enthusiastic, distant, respectful love, that she should ever be obliged to carry the sharp antidote against disgrace concealed in that bosom; little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fallen upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor, and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look that threatened her with insult.
But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded, and the glory of Europe is extinguished forever. Never, never more, shall we behold that generous loyalty to rank and sex, that proud submission, that dignified obedience, that subordination of the heart, which kept alive, even in servitude itself, the spirit of an exalted freedom! The unbought grace of life, the cheap defense of nations, the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprise is gone. It is gone, that sensibility of principle, that chastity of honor, which felt a stain like a wound, which inspired courage whilst it mitigated ferocity, which ennobled whatever it touched, and under which vice itself lost half its evil, by losing all its grossness.
But then the woman may have actually said Qu’ils mangent de la brioche. Some have suggested this wasn’t that cynical – French law at the time required bakers to sell loaves at fixed prices and fancy loaves had to be sold at the same price as basic breads, to prevent bakers from selling just the more profitable stuff. The “let them eat brioche” line – and here we’re talking about a form of cake made of flour, butter and eggs – would have been a rather sensible suggestion in the face of a flour shortage. You see, that would have allowed the poor to eat what would otherwise have been unaffordable. That’s not so bad, perhaps an early example of “compassionate conservatism” – even if there’s evidence that Marie-Thérèse (1638-83), the wife of Louis XIV, was the one who said Que ne mangent-ils de la croûte de pâté? (Why don’t they eat pastry?), just to confuse everyone.
It hardly matters now. It’s legend. Marie-Antoinette said “Let them eat cake” and that’s that. The scruffy revolutionaries were ticked off. Things had to change. Burke wept – people so misunderstand the essential goodness, kindness and grace of the conservatives, who know the value of tradition and respect for authority and really mean no harm. But things changed nevertheless. She lost her head. Sometimes you pay a price for saying dumb-ass things, or for people assuming, because of your cocky attitude, that you must have said those things.
Well, the more things change, the more they remain the same - Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose – it’s an old French saying, right up there with La bave du crapaud n’atteint pas la blanche colombe – literally ” The spit of the toad doesn’t reach the white dove” (we like to say that “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me” of course). In any event here we go again.
Wednesday, October 3, 2007, brought us President Bush’s fourth veto. His first, last year, blocked federal research using embryonic stem cells. His second in May killed a war spending bill that set a timetable for troop withdrawals from Iraq. In June, he vetoed the stem cell bill a second time. And now he did it again, vetoing legislation to expand a children’s health insurance program to cover four million additional children. This was the renewal of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program that would have provided an estimated ten million children with health insurance coverage. The program was enacted by the Republican Congress and Democratic President Bill Clinton in 1997, designed to subsidize health coverage for families that earn too much to qualify for Medicaid - the federal government health care plan for the poor - but not enough to afford private insurance. In negotiations between the House and Senate they cut the cost of expanding the program from one hundred billion to fifty billion and finally to thirty-five billion over five years. Bush wanted five billion, no more. Now there’s no program at all.
This one was controversial, to say the least, and could be costly to members of his own Republican Party running next fall. They winced. At least he said nothing about brioche.
The Associated Press account offers some details – Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada vowing that “Congress will fight hard to override President Bush’s heartless veto.” But Republican leaders said they have enough votes to make the veto stick in the House, and not a single senior Democrat disputed that. A two-thirds majority in both houses of Congress is required to override a veto. The original Senate vote was 67-29, enough to override, but the House votes first and the votes just aren’t there. The bill will die.
The president was wise enough to veto the bill in private, no television cameras or any other media coverage. Some things are best done quietly, particularly as this measure called for adding an estimated four million mostly lower-income children to a program that currently covers 6.6 million kids. Funds for the expansion were to have come from higher tobacco taxes – a 61-cent increase on a pack of cigarettes and such – but funded or not, the president would have none of this. “Poor kids first,” was what he said – you really don’t want this to apply to anyone just above “poor” – and, “Secondly, I believe in private medicine, not the federal government running the health care system.”
But he did assure us he’s not heartless. He said he’s is willing to compromise with Congress “if they need a little more money in the bill to help us meet the objective of getting help for poor children.”
Good luck with that – Democratic leaders scheduled the showdown on this for October 18, giving them two weeks to sit back and let public pressure build on Republicans. One union-led organization said it would spend more than three million trying to influence the outcome, and Speaker Nancy Pelosi said “It’s going to be a hard vote for Republicans.” Maybe it will be. Burke died long ago and he’s no longer available for impassioned speeches. Democratic Party chairman Howard Dean called the veto appalling, and Pelosi said, “It’s very sad that the president has chosen to veto a bill that would provide health care for ten million American children for the next five years.” Where is Burke?
Of course Republicans said none of the criticism would matter. Roy Blunt of Missouri, second-ranking Republican leader in the House had his prediction – “I’m confident that the more time we have to explain the veto, the more people will be with our position.” And there is a strategy here – the idea is to sustain the veto and force Democrats into negotiations on a compromise that vulnerable Republicans could embrace, making the Democrats look weak. John Boehner of Ohio, the House Republican leader, kicked that off – “Democrats now face an important choice: Either work with Republicans to renew this program or continue to play politics on the backs of our nation’s children.” Hey, if a reduced program doesn’t get approved and kids die, it will be the fault of the Democrats. That’s a pretty cool strategy.
And the basics are clear – the Democratic legislation would add thirty-five billion to the program over five years to expand coverage. The president argued the bill was too costly, took the program too far beyond its original intent of helping the poor and would “entice people with private insurance to switch to government coverage.” He has proposed a five billion increase in funding – no more. The countermove, reported from a few officials, “speaking on condition of anonymity because they were discussing strategy,” said Pelosi and Reid plan on sending the president successor bills that are identical with the one he just vetoed, over and over and over. The goal here would be to force him – and his congressional allies – “to repeatedly expose themselves to criticism that they were denying health care for kids.” So there! It’s a Mexican standoff!
Okay, okay, you know the line that comes next – “Won’t anyone think of the children? What about the children?”
Yeah, yeah – and what about the polls? That matters more.
AP reports the Democrats have polling that shows the public sides with them by a margin of 60-35. And the summary says the veto fight “gives Democrats a large advantage with independents, as well as mobilizing Democratic supporters.” And it adds that the president has not won over Republican voters on this issue at all. The Republicans say they have polling that shows the opposite, that they can win big time here if they hammer away at how they really do favor “covering uninsured children without expanding government coverage to adults, illegal immigrants and those who already have insurance.” Who knows? Tons of polls have shown health insurance is an important issue with the public, and Democrats have made expansion of the children’s health program a priority since taking control of Congress in January. But there are ways to make all that look evil. It just takes more work.
Zachary Coile of the San Francisco Chronicle has more detail –
Polls show the public favors expanding the program to help kids from low-income families who are not poor enough to qualify for government health care, but still lack health insurance. The legislation is backed by 43 governors - including California Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger - who say the program isn’t keeping pace with the swelling ranks of uninsured children.
In California, the legislation would provide 607,000 more children with insurance in addition to the 1.1 million who already benefit from the program.
Okay, it will take a lot of work, and Coile notes the timing is just bad –
The president just sent a request to Congress for $189 billion to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan next year. By contrast, the expanded children’s health program would cost $60 billion over five years.
“While he continues to demand billions to fund his flawed war policies, he is telling the most vulnerable segment of our society that there just isn’t enough money for them to have adequate health care,” said Rep. Ellen Tauscher, D-Walnut Creek.
All the members of the Bay Area’s House delegation voted in favor of the bill. No kidding.
Still, there is that one BIG argument the president offered - “I happen to believe what you’re seeing when you expand eligibility for federal programs is the desire by some in Washington, D.C. to federalize health care.”
Orrin Hatch, the old-fart Republican from Utah, was puzzled – “To call this a march toward one-size-fits-all, government-mandated health care is just political, in my opinion, because this is a block grant to the states. I think he (the president) has been given some pretty bad advice.”
And out here the grants work this way –
In California, children qualify to enroll in the Healthy Families program if their families earn less than 250 percent of the federal poverty level - for a family of three, that’s an annual income of $42,500. Schwarzenegger has sought to expand eligibility to kids at 300 percent of the federal poverty level as part of his effort to cover more of the state’s 6.5 million uninsured.
The Bush administration has pushed back against California and other states. In August, the Department of Health and Human Services issued new rules to tighten program enrollment. Before any state could expand their enrollment, they would have to show that 95 percent of the kids enrolled were at 200 percent of the poverty level - a hurdle many state officials said would force them to cut children off their rolls.
“The rules … would both deny health care to vulnerable children and pregnant women and greatly restrict the flexibility of states,” Schwarzenegger wrote in an Aug. 29 letter co-signed by New York Democratic Gov. Eliot Spitzer.
Well those two guys aren’t the president, are they? And the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP) is NOT reauthorized.
Timothy Noah sees some good here –
S-CHIP, which is funded jointly by the federal government and the states, was created in 1997 as a sort of consolation prize after Congress defeated the Clinton administration’s proposed restructuring of the health-care industry. Its purpose was to provide health insurance to low-income children whose families earned too much to qualify them for Medicaid. States were given broad discretion to set eligibility rules, with the result that in New Jersey, which had the most generous rules, a family of four could participate in S-CHIP even if its income were as high as $72,275. (In explaining his veto, Bush misstated that ceiling as $83,000. He also failed to point out that two months ago his administration effectively lowered the ceiling to around $52,000 for a family of four.)
S-CHIP has been generous to middle-class families, but its chief benefit has gone to poor families. According to the Congressional Budget Office, S-CHIP brought the percentage of children who lack health insurance in families earning up to twice the poverty level (set this year at $17,170 for a family of three; below that, you’re usually eligible for Medicaid) from 26 percent down to 17 percent.
What distresses President Bush about the S-CHIP program is that, even before the Democratic Congress voted in its reauthorization to extend eligibility to families with higher incomes, S-CHIP was already displacing private plans for somewhere between one-quarter and one-half of all enrollees. That’s because S-CHIP was less expensive and provided broader coverage than private plans. Is this a scandal? Only if you think that private health-care plans today are priced reasonably and offer adequate coverage.
And that’s the rub. No one is happy with private health-care plans. We seem to have had enough of that.
Bush said this –
I happen to believe that what you’re seeing when you expand eligibility for federal programs is the desire by some in Washington, D.C. to federalize health care. I don’t think that’s good for the country. I believe in private medicine. I believe in helping poor people - which was the intent of S-CHIP, now being expanded beyond its initial intent. I also believe that the federal government should make it easier for people to afford private insurance. I don’t want the federal government making decisions for doctors and customers.
So why did the American Medical Association support its passage? Noah knows –
What Bush really means is “I believe in private health insurance,” but that’s not much of an applause line (unless you’re addressing a roomful of insurance-industry lobbyists). Even market fundamentalists are leery of the private health insurance industry these days, because they believe it has caused medical costs to spiral out of control by severing the financial relationship between the people who consume medical services and the people who provide them. I don’t mean to suggest that Milton Friedman groupies now think that substituting government would be an improvement. But when Bush says “I don’t want the federal government making decisions for doctors and customers,” he neglects to point out that currently, private insurers are making decisions for doctors and customers, to the serious detriment of both.
You know what’s coming. Hey, Marie-Antoinette knew what was coming.
Noah concludes with this –
Bush was insane to veto S-CHIP, not only because it’s become a necessary program, but also because the outrage the veto causes should help grease the skids for universal health care. What a lucky break that Bush doesn’t seem to get that.
Change is coming.
Other comment - Daniel DiRito, Dear Mr. President: Private Medicine Means No Medicine If You’re Poor and Jon Swift, Bush to Kids: Grow Up!, along with Senator Edward M. Kennedy, My Challenge to the President and Christy Hardin Smith, The Test Of Greatness Is How We Care For Our Children and so on.
This is not going well. See Dan Walter here –
George W. Bush thinks pulling this Goldwater act with the children’s health insurance bill will solidify his place in history as a true fiscal conservative. What a moron.
He waltzed right into this political ambush the same way he got suckered into invading Iraq. Even his buddies in Congress were startled by the breathtakingly obtuse act of vetoing a children’s program that had bi-partisan support.
… Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, said that contrary to what Mr. Bush says about his own vision for the insurance plan, “It won’t even cover kids on the program today, much less reach out to cover more kids.”
So we have an irresponsible boob at the helm - and he’s getting bad advice.
It feels like 1789 again. But of course we won’t have a revolution or anything. We’re not French, after all.
