Corzine Responds to Bush SCHIP Veto

by: Juan Melli

Wed Oct 03, 2007 at 10:39:17 AM EDT

"Once again, President Bush has missed an opportunity to display compassionate leadership.  Instead, he has resorted to political and ideological gamesmanship rather than seek a bipartisan solution that would protect this nation's most vulnerable children.

"The stakes in New Jersey are high, our successful Family Care program has 124,000 children and 80,000 parents whose coverage is in jeopardy.  If the program is not reauthorized, these children and their families might lose their coverage or alternatively New Jersey taxpayers will be forced to pick up the tab.

"While the President continues to advocate an ideological and harsh policy of reducing coverage of children, we will do everything we can to preserve the bipartisan Family Care program.

"President Franklin D. Roosevelt once said, "The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much;  it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little."  The impact of this veto action sorely impedes progress made by individual states in addressing the burgeoning problems faced by the thousands of uninsured families struggling to make ends meet.

"I commend the bipartisan effort of our New Jersey delegation who voted to renew SCHIP. And I urge Congress to overturn this devastating veto and fully reauthorize the State Children's Health Insurance Program. The future of our nation is in these very children we seek to safeguard."