Hoyer Sick of Garrett's SCHIP

Well, Representative Steny Hoyer seems to have had enough of Representative Scott Garrett's constant misrepresentation regarding the SCHIP bill the President vetoed yet again. After another of Garrett's misinformation efforts, Hoyer took to the floor and took Garrett to task:

I was not going to participate in this debate, but the gentleman from New Jersey doesn't fully understand what we've been about for the last 2 months. He talked about the rank and file. Mr. Dingell, the senior Member of this House, myself, Senator Baucus, Senator Hatch, Senator Grassley, Members of the rank and file on your side of the aisle who had not voted for this bill and didn't vote to override the veto. Mr. Barton was in some of those meetings. Mr. Deal was in some of those meetings. We met for almost 100 hours with rank-and-file Members on your side because we felt so strongly we wanted to address some of the issues of concern.

It's important at this point to point out that Hoyer didn't say, "you were there". How serious can Garrett really be about working with the other side if he won't go to a meeting. A 100 hours of meetings and Garrett can't bother spending 15 minutes for a program providing roughly $1.5 million in aid in our District every year? Hoyer continues:

We haven't gotten there yet, but I want to tell the gentleman, first of all, he says this bill is not for indigent children. Medicaid is for indigent children. This is for children of hardworking Americans who are not making enough because either their employer doesn't provide insurance or they can't afford the insurance to cover their children. We tried very, very hard. I defy you, and you haven't been here that long, I understand that, but I defy you to find another instance where that many hours has been put in by such senior Members, including two of the most senior Republicans in the United States Senate who voted for this bill, as did 18 of their colleagues in the United States Senate, and 44 of your colleagues here voted for this bill, and 45 for the previous bill. This is a very significant bipartisan bill.

That's a "sit down rookie" statement.

And this bill responded to some of the concerns raised by the President. You continue to talk about adults. There are parents on here at the States' choice, as you know. Your State's choice, my State's choice. However, we precluded, as you know, in this bill nonparents, and rather than a 2-year phaseout, we did a 1-year phaseout. We responded to the President's concern about $83,000. We capped it at 300 percent. We responded to the question of trying to identify and to make sure that we add people who are authorized to be in this country.

I've dealt with Garrett's misrepresentations of what the SCHIP bill contains, it's tough to pick a best effort, but this one may have helped prevent his Op-Ed from being published.

So I think the gentleman's comments about the Democratic Party, or Democrat, as he likes to refer to us, is totally inaccurate, I will tell my friend. We've worked very hard. Why have we worked very hard? Because we think that 4 million children who the President of the United States in 2004 got on the Republican National Convention floor seeking the votes of all of his fellow citizens to be re-elected as President of the United States, said, I want to add millions of children currently eligible to this program who are not yet served. I tell my friend that's what this bill does. That's why we are so surprised and disappointed that the President rejected this bill and vetoed it and said, as the Speaker said, I forbid this bill going into effect and adding those 4 million children.

I'm glad somebody was finally able to stand up and say to Garrett, directly, while he was on the floor, that he's been misrepresenting the SCHIP bill from the beginning. I hope there is more of this to come, and I hope some of the Republicans backing this bill will stand up and tell Garrett he's full of it as well.