WASHINGTON — President Bush cast a quiet veto Wednesday against a politically attractive expansion of children’s health insurance, triggering a struggle with the Democratic-controlled Congress certain to reverberate into the 2008 elections.
“Congress will fight hard to override President Bush’s heartless veto,” vowed Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada.
Republican leaders expressed confidence they have enough votes to make the veto stick in the House, and not a single senior Democrat disputed them. A two-thirds majority in both houses of Congress is required to override a veto.
Bush vetoed the bill in private, absent the television cameras and other media coverage that normally attend even routine presidential actions. The measure called for adding an estimated four million mostly lower-income children to a program that currently covers 6.6 million. Funds for the expansion would come from higher tobacco taxes, including a 61-cent increase on a pack of cigarettes.
“Poor kids first,” Bush said later in explaining his decision, reflecting a concern that some of the bill’s benefits would go to families at higher incomes. “Secondly, I believe in private medicine, not the federal government running the health care system,” he added in remarks to an audience in Lancaster, Pa.
The president said he is willing to compromise with Congress “if they need a little more money in the bill to help us meet the objective of getting help for poor children.”
It was the fourth veto of Bush’s presidency, at a time his popularity is low, the legislation popular enough to draw support from dozens of GOP lawmakers, and an override certain to seal his lame-duck status.
Democratic leaders scheduled the showdown for Oct. 18 to allow two weeks for pressure to build on Republicans. A union-led organization said it would spend more than $3 million trying to influence the outcome. “It’s going to be a hard vote for Republicans,” promised Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.
Criticism of the veto was instantaneous, from every quarter of the Democratic political firmament.
Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware, a presidential hopeful, called it unconscionable, party chairman Howard Dean labeled it appalling, and Pelosi said, “It’s very sad that the president has chosen to veto a bill that would provide health care for 10 million American children for the next five years.”
Eighteen Republicans in the Senate supported the measure when it passed, including four who face difficult challenges next year. In the House, 45 GOP lawmakers defected.
Republicans said their goal was to sustain the veto and force Democrats into negotiations on a compromise that GOP lawmakers could embrace.
“Democrats now face an important choice: Either work with Republicans to renew this program or continue to play politics on the backs of our nation’s children,” said Rep. John Boehner of Ohio, the House Republican leader.
There were 265 votes in all for the measure when it passed last month. Supporters need to pick up 25 more votes to override the veto.
Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland said a few of the eight Democrats who originally voted no would switch sides, and one or two more votes were available from a small group that was absent on the earlier vote.
But 151 Republicans opposed the bill when it passed, enough to sustain the veto, and absent numerous switches, Bush’s veto seemed secure.
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