George Bush Doesn't Care About Poor Children

Brendan Nyhan has the goods:

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has issued a must-read analysis of the SCHIP debate that reveals the emptiness of White House claims that we should put "poor kids first." As it turns out, the SCHIP bill is structured to do just that, and the Bush administration's policies are not (shocking!).

One has to keep in mind the broader picture here, too. The right's main tactic whenever Democrats want to do something that might be helpful to any group of citizens everywhere is to identify some even more desperately poor group and claim that their opposition to helping out is driven by a die-hard commitment to these truly needy types. Try to help the working class, and the underclass are trotted out for moral blackmail. Try to help the middle class, and what about the poor? But then when push comes to shove, these are the same people trying to cut section eight housing programs, trying to cut food stamps, etc. The only people they're really serious about helping are the extremely wealthy beneficiaries of their tax cuts.

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