Increasing taxes on cigarettes must be a good thing to do.

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There is a gap in Medicaid where some children are not getting the health coverage they need.

I must ask the question how did the democrats let this obvious problem happen for so long?

So what is Washington's solution to this problem. More than double the cigarette tax.

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There is one other factor in this. Many states are raising their state cigarette taxes in order to generate revenue as well. There has to be a breaking point where people will not buy cigarettes because they are to expensive. It will be interesting to see if this proposal generates enough revenue to even pay for these children that do not have health insurance to have health insurance.

I would not be surprised at all if the democrats say this is a public health issue and this tax is actually helping some people because maybe even if only a few people did not smoke because of this proposal that would be a good thing right?

There is only one problem with this rational thinking. If fewer people are smoking won't fewer people be paying the tax?

This is an absolute classic. So if this ever becomes law will this mean tax and spend is back?

I will be watching for another consumption tax to be proposed eventually. The federal gas tax has not been raised in ages. I wonder what the revenue raised will be spent on if that happens.

A while back the democrats said they wanted most of the Bush tax cuts to expire except for "targeted" tax cuts for the middle class.

Why is it so important that only people in the middle class get to keep their tax cuts?

I am wondering if this is a tax increase on everyone that is not in the middle class? What percentage of taxpayers are actually in the middle class?

It feels like it has been ages since Washington has even thought to propose a tax increase. I am trying to remember which party in Washington controls the congress at this point? Now there was a tax increase on cigarettes back in 2003 but that was not even close to this proposed tax increase. I wonder what happened to the revenue from the last tax increase on cigarettes.

I wonder if the democrats will be running on the issue of raising taxes next year because of all of the things the republicans have been neglecting in the last more than a decade now?

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G.O.P. Leaders Fight Expansion of Children’s Health Insurance

This is the title of an article from the New York Times.

The purpose of this article is to show that republicans are opposed to health insurance for children.

I can see why republicans would oppose this in the first place. It is a very small amount of not even in the tens of billions now but eventually it will grow to much larger amounts of money being needed like so many other programs that the feds fund.

So if this issue is so important why are the democrats raising this issue all of sudden instead of months ago?

Does this type of story help democrats raise money for their campaigns?

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I get so sick and tired of both sides of the aisle in congress and the president also doing things expressly for the purpose of their own self interest.

I will be waiting for the congress and the president to start doing things in the interest of the people and not in their own self interest.

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Another article from the New York Times on why the things in Washington are happening.

What is going on at the New York Times they are actually trying to explain why things in Washington are happening the way they are? Oh wait both articles purpose are to show that the republicans are evil and don't really care about issues we should all be concerned about.

I will have to come back to this latter on but I will pulling select passages from my article that explain what I just said just minutes ago about Washington doing things for as I say again for their own self interests. Parts of this story illustrate this perfectly.



Congressional Memo
Democrats Pushing to Avoid a ‘Do-Nothing’ Label

WASHINGTON, July 24 — Congressional Democrats celebrated the first minimum wage increase in a decade on Tuesday with a festive labor rally across from the Capitol. But they know they will have to accomplish considerably more to avoid the sort of do-nothing labels they hung on Republicans not too long ago.

“It is not enough, but it is a great start,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi said as she told the cheering crowd that the wage increase that took effect Tuesday was just one element of a middle-class economic program that includes college tuition help, expanded health care coverage and other emerging proposals.

Democrats hope to post more legislative victories in a few days, including enacting into law some of the remaining recommendations of the bipartisan Sept. 11 commission. They also want to pass a lobbying overhaul that was central to their campaign last year against the “culture of corruption” so they can start their late-summer recess on a high note.

Republicans agree it would represent real progress if Democrats could get those measures through and tee up a few others for the fall. But they are withering in their criticism of what the Democratic majority has — and has not — done since taking power in January.

“They’ve wasted the first seven months by being excessively partisan and creating unnecessary, in my view, disputes with a pretty robust minority of 49,” said Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader.

Democrats accuse Mr. McConnell and Congressional Republicans of deliberately trying to block the majority’s initiatives so they can then pin the blame on the Democratic leadership that was put in place in the 2006 elections.

“They resent what happened last November, they’re jealous of what happened last November, and they’re mad as hell at what happened last November,” Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, said Tuesday. “What they don’t want to acknowledge is what we’ve been able to accomplish.”

Mr. Reid and other Democrats say they are not getting credit for some of their achievements, including spending increases on veterans programs and military health care as well as agricultural assistance and Gulf Coast recovery aid included in an emergency spending bill. They also passed a budget and finished up spending bills left incomplete by Republicans last year and initiated a series of inquiries into Bush administration operations.

Nonetheless, Democrats know that they need to send other significant legislation to President Bush’s desk and cannot simply make the case for a continuing majority on the basis of a standoff with Mr. Bush over Iraq policy and reinvigorated oversight of the White House and Cabinet agencies. Americans United for Change, an activist group allied with Democrats, has even broadcast a television advertisement reminding voters of Democratic initiatives.

The next 10 days will be critical. If Democrats can get antiterrorism legislation and a lobbying measure through to stand alongside the minimum wage increase, they will have fulfilled some of their main campaign commitments. An energy bill, children’s health care coverage and college aid measures would be in the pipeline for September.

Representative Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, the chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, said he was optimistic that Democrats would get the results they needed. In the process, he said, they will show how Republicans failed when they ran Congress by shortchanging minimum wage earners, veterans and college students and by allowing corruption to fester.

“Those are all things that we have gotten done or will get done that they refused to do,” Mr. Emanuel said.

Republicans say that Democrats should not get their hopes too high about the days ahead. The final version of the antiterrorism legislation has been tied up in a dispute over legal immunity for those who report suspicious activity. The lobbying overhaul, whose details have not been disclosed, faces potential procedural obstacles.

“The way that they have proceeded, I am not sure that you can count on anything getting done, even those things that look like a fairly certain bet,” said Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona, a member of the Republican leadership.

Mr. Kyl did offer an apology for calling this a do-nothing Congress, saying that because Democrats had sent Mr. Bush legislation naming 20 postal facilities, it should be called the post-office Congress.

Republicans say that even if Democrats achieve their objectives, they will still fall short of the work of the Republican Congress in 2005, a comparable year between elections, when Republicans delivered energy and highway legislation just before leaving for August.

And they say Democrats are lagging far behind on the annual spending bills, perhaps in an intentional effort to corner Mr. Bush and Republicans so they have to confront an all-encompassing year-end spending measure that would be difficult to veto.

On Tuesday, Mr. Bush agreed to meet with Ms. Pelosi and Mr. Reid to try to head off a budget showdown set off by his objections to Democratic spending levels.

What Republicans do not typically mention when discussing Democrats is that they were usually far behind on the spending bills when they ran Congress. They also do not like to point out that the energy and highway bills that passed in 2005 had been stalled for years and broke free only because their party was under pressure to produce some legislative victories.

Facing those same kinds of pressure, Democrats are scrambling to produce as well.

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