President Is Rebuffed on Program for Children
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/04/19/8394/
By Robert Pear
WA****NGTON - The Bush administration violated federal law last year when
it restricted states’
ability to provide health insurance to children of middle-income families,
and its new policy is
therefore unenforceable, lawyers from the Government Accountability Office
said Friday.0419 02 1
The ruling strengthens the hand of at least 22 states, including New York
and New Jersey, that
already provide such coverage or want to do so. And it significantly
reduces the chance that the
new policy can be put into effect before President Bush leaves office in
nine months.
At issue is the future of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program,
financed jointly by the
federal government and the states. Congress last year twice passed bills
to expand the popular
program, and Mr. Bush vetoed both.
State officials of both parties say the policy, set forth in a letter to
state health officials
on Aug. 17, has stymied their efforts to cover more children at a time
when the number of
uninsured is rising and more families are experiencing economic hard****p.
In a formal legal opinion Friday, the accountability office said the new
policy “amounts to a
marked departure” from a longstanding, settled interpretation of federal
law. It is therefore a
rule and, under a 1996 law, must be submitted to Congress for review
before it can take effect,
the opinion said.
But Jeff Nelligan, a spokesman for the federal Centers for Medicare and
Medicaid Services, said,
“G.A.O.’s opinion does not change our conclusion that the Aug. 17 letter
is still in effect.”
The letter told states what steps they needed to take to be sure the
children’s health program
would not displace or “crowd out” private coverage under group health
plans. The White House
cited the policy as a justification for rejecting a proposal by New York
State to cover 70,000
additional youngsters.
What happens next is not clear. New York, New Jersey and several other
states have filed
lawsuits challenging the Bush administration policy. In addition, Congress
may consider
legislation to suspend the directive.
Deborah S. Bachrach, a deputy commissioner in the New York State Health
Department, said, “The
opinion from the Government Accountability Office vindicates our position
that the federal
government did not have authority to issue the Aug. 17 directive.”
The 1996 law, the Congressional Review Act, was enacted to keep Congress
informed about the
rule-making activities of federal agencies. If Congress objects to a new
rule, it can pass “a
joint resolution of disapproval,” which the president can sign or veto.
Under the Aug. 17 directive, states cannot expand the Children’s Health
Insurance Program to
cover youngsters with family incomes over 250 percent of the federal
poverty level ($53,000 for
a family of four) unless they can prove that they already cover 95 percent
of eligible children
below twice the poverty level ($42,400).
Moreover, in such states, children who lose or drop private coverage must
be uninsured for 12
months before they can enroll in the Children’s Health Insurance Program,
and co-payments in the
public program must be similar to those in private plans.
The legal opinion was requested by Senators John D. Rockefeller IV,
Democrat of West Virginia,
and Olympia J. Snowe, Republican of Maine. In view of it, they urged the
administration to
rescind the Aug. 17 directive.
The administration told states they must comply with the directive by
August of this year or
else they face “corrective action.” Compliance could mean cutting back
programs.
The Justice Department contends that the letter is “merely a general
statement of policy with
nonbinding effect,” But Gary L. Kepplinger, general counsel of the
accountability office, said
administration officials had treated it as “a binding rule.”
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Finally, the campaigns of 1793 and 1794 set Clausewitz on the path of
recognizing war as a
political phenomenon. Wars, as everyone knew, were fought for a purpose
that was political,
or at least always had political consequences. Not as readily apparent
was the implication
that followed. If war was meant to achieve a political purpose, everything
that entered into
war — social and economic preparation, strategic planning, the conduct of
operations, the
use of violence on all levels — should be determined by this purpose, or
at least accord
with it. Even though soldiers had to acquire special expertise, and
function in what in some
respects was a separate world, it would be a denial of reality to allow
them to carry on
their bloody work undisturbed until an armistice brought their political
employer back into
the equation. Just as war and its institutions reflected their social
environment, so every
aspect of fighting should be suffused by its political impulse, whether
this impulse was
intense or moderate. The appropriate relation****p between politics and war
occupied
Clausewitz throughout his life, but even his earliest manuscripts and
letters show his
awareness of their interaction.
The ease with which this link — always acknowledged in the abstract —
can be forgotten in
specific cases, and Clausewitz’s insistence that it must never be
overlooked, are
illustrated by his polite rejection toward the end of his life of a
strategic problem set by
the chief of the Prussian General Staff, in which every military detail of
the opposing
sides was spelled out, but no mention made of their political purpose. To
a friend who had
sent him the problem for comment, Clausewitz replied that it was not
possible to draft a
sensible plan of operations without indicating the political condition of
the states
involved, and their relation****p to each other: ‘War is not an independent
phenomenon, but
the continuation of politics by different means. Consequently, the main
lines of every major
strategic plan are largely political in nature, and their political
character increases the
more the plan applies to the entire campaign and to the whole state. A war
plan results
directly from the political conditions of the two warring states, as well
as from their
relations to third powers. A plan of campaign results from the war plan,
and frequently - if
there is only one theater of operations - may even be identical with it.
But the political
element even enters the separate components of a campaign; rarely will it
be without
influence on such major episodes of warfare as a battle, etc. According to
this point of
view, there can be no question of a purely military evaluation of a great
strategic issue,
nor of a purely military scheme to solve it.’
Everyman’s Library, 1993 ISBN: 0679420436 On war /by Clausewitz, Carl
von, 1780-1831.
Knopf, 1993. From the introduction by Peter Paret, Pg7
_____________________________________________________________________
The U-2 is a jet-powered reconnaissance aircraft specially designed to fly
at high altitudes
(i.e., above 70,000 ft [21 km]). It was used during the late 1950s to
overfly the Soviet
Union, China, the Middle East, and Cuba; flights over the Soviet Union,
the primary mission
for which the plane was designed, ended in 1960 when a U-2 flown by CIA
pilot Gary Powers
was shot down over the Soviet Union. This event was a major political
embarrassment for the U.S.
http://www.espionageinfo.com/Te-Uk/U-2-Spy-Plane.html
Soviet Prime Minister Khrushchev's reaction to the overflights which
were discovered
just before a summit conference in Paris with President Eisenhower: "It
was as though the
Americans had deliberately tried to place a time bomb under the meeting" .
. ."How could
they count on us to give them a helping hand if we allowed ourselves to be
spat upon without
so much as a murmur of protest?" The only solution was to demand a formal
public apology
from Eisenhower and a guarantee that no more overflights would take place
. . .
But the apology Khrushchev was looking for would not come. Despite
having trespassed
on the Soviet Union for the past four years with scores of flights by both
U-2's and heavy
bombers, the old general still could not say the words, it was just not in
him. . . A time
bomb had exploded, prematurely ending the summit conference. . .
Back in Wa****ngton, the mood was glum. The Senate Foreign Relations
Committee was
leaning toward holding a closed door investigation into the U-2 incident .
. . In public,
Eisenhower maintained a brave face. He "heartily approved" of the
congressional probe and
would 'of course fully cooperate,' he quickly told anyone who asked. But
in private he was
very troubled. For weeks he had tried to head off the investigation. His
major concern was
that his own personal involvement in the overflights would surface,
especially the May Day
disaster. Equally, he was very worried that details of the dangerous
bomber overflights
would leak out. The massed overflight may in fact, have been one of the
most dangerous
actions ever approved by a president.
pg. 51-55 ~Body of Secrets; Anatomy of the Ultra Secret National Security
Agency
James Bamford
----------------------------------------------------------------------
"Let me give you a word of the philosophy of reform. The whole history of
the progress of
human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims,
have been born of
earnest struggle. The conflict has been exciting, agitating,
all-absorbing, and for the time
being, putting all other tumults to silence. It must do this or it does
nothing. If there is
no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and
yet depreciate
agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want
rain without
thunder and lightening. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its
many waters."
"This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may
be both moral and
physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a
demand. It never did and
it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and
you have found out the
exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and
these will continue
till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The
limits of tyrants are
prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress. In the light of
these ideas, Negroes
will be hunted at the North, and held and flogged at the South so long as
they submit to those
devilish outrages, and make no resistance, either moral or physical. Men
may not get all they
pay for in this world; but they must certainly pay for all they get. If we
ever get free from
the oppressions and wrongs heaped upon us, we must pay for their removal.
We must do this by
labor, by suffering, by sacrifice, and if needs be, by our lives and the
lives of others."
http://www.buildingequality.us/Quotes/Frederick_Douglass.htm
Frederick Douglass, 1857
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http://www.politicsusaweb.com/
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