The Fighting 29th

All about New York's 29th Congressional District

The Ontario Republican, a new blog in the district, has been addressing some of the S-CHIP polling reports.   The Republican thinks that the USA Today poll originally cited by Randy Kuhl is pretty good, and he thinks another, less favorable poll by the Kaiser foundation is skewed toward Democrats.

I'll go into a little more detail on S-CHIP polling in a moment, but I want to emphasize a general point that I made in the post on the Kaiser poll.  My overall opinion on issue polls like these is that they are so biased by the way that questions are constructed that they are pretty useless for determining "real" public opinion.   For example, the USA Today/Gallup poll on S-CHIP was criticized for its question construction, but I think that criticism is probably applicable to a lot of issue polls.  The reason is that a random sample of the electorate is only educated enough to give a "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" view of any issue.  When pollsters try to probe the reasons behind the thumb up or down, they have to inject some facts into their questions, and their choice of facts adds some bias to their questions.

The way to control for this bias is to look at moving averages from multiple polls for many time periods.  Unfortunately, only the biggest questions of our time have enough polling data to support this technique.  The site pollster.com has moving averages if you're interested.

Returning to S-CHIP, the Republican points out, rightly, that S-CHIP polling is hard to apply to the 29th district, which has a more Republican demographic than the country in general.   But, since he and Kuhl started this discussion, let's look at few more nationwide polls. 

The most recent one I could find was a CBS News poll released last week.  By an 81-15 margin, it found that respondents favored expanding S-CHIP.  74% of those who favored expansion would be willing to pay higher taxes to support S-CHIP expansion.  A CNN poll taken during the same timeframe, but asking a slightly different question, found that 61% favored veto override, while 35% do not.   A late September Washington Post poll found that 72% of those polled supported S-CHIP expansion, while 25% opposed it.  

If the game we're playing is "what do the polls say", I think it's fair to conclude that the general, nationwide opinion on S-CHIP is thumbs up for expansion.   I don't think that game is very interesting or informative, but I think the game that Kuhl was trying to play, which was "let's cherry-pick the one poll that agrees with my position", is worse.

Hopefully this post puts the S-CHIP polling issue to bed.  It shouldn't have come up in the first place.  Unfortunately, President Bush and the House Republican leadership have put Kuhl in a position where he's casting about for ever-more flimsy defenses of his S-CHIP vote.   I think Kuhl and other House Republicans would have been better off if they followed the example of some of their Senate colleagues.  Chuck Grassley is no flaming liberal, yet he understands that S-CHIP expansion needs to be passed, and he's willing to vote for an override.

Reader Elmer sends the Corning Leader story [pdf] detailing Randy Kuhl's town meetings in the Corning area this weekend.  A full list is available on Kuhl's official site.

Kuhl continues active posting on his blog.  Many of his latest postings concern the speed of legislative progress in Congress.  One factor in this speed is the use of what used to be called "filibuster threats" by the Republican minority in the Senate.  Earlier this year, McClatchy covered the greatly expanded use of delaying tactics by the Republicans, pointing out that the Senate was on track for a record number of cloture votes this year.   To help understand the use of cloture, I've added cloture votes as a category of tracked votes on CongressDB.  Here's an example for a happy warrior.  By my count, cloture has been invoked 48 times so far this year, which is more than the full session (two year) number for many recent Senate sessions.

With all of the media attention focused on the S-CHIP veto, the actual override got slight media attention in district newspapers.  When I pulled the paper Democrat & Chronicle from my front step this morning, I found a front-page AP story that didn't even bother to report how area representatives voted.  That's consistent with their usual low-quality political coverage.  The Elmira Star-Gazette has nothing that I can find.  The Corning Leader, which I'm beginning to think is the best paper in the district, actually took a wire story and inserted a couple of graphs about how the local Congressman voted.  That's what newspapers are supposed to do with national stories that have a local tie-in.

But I shouldn't be too hard on the local papers.  The lack of coverage actually confirms what everyone knew at the start:  there was no chance that Republicans would change their vote on this measure, and the failure of the override was a foregone conclusion.   The real question is whether the Democrats' decision to delay the override vote for two weeks helped or hurt their cause.  To answer that question, I pose another: Is the stench of unresponsiveness wafting from Congressional Republicans powerful enough to offset the whiff of impotence emanating from Congressional Democrats?   Only time will tell if voters' nostrils are sensitive enough to discern a difference, or if they'll just conclude that the whole thing stinks.

The Elmira Star-Gazette reprints a Kuhl press release on S-CHIP.  It begins by touting the same USA Today poll as his blog post yesterday, then it makes the following claim about adult coverage in S-CHIP:

Currently there are more than 500,000 low-income children eligible for the program but not covered. Meanwhile, some 700,000 adults currently receive SCHIP benefits, including 87 percent of the enrollees in Minnesota and 66 percent of the beneficiaries in Wisconsin, according to the Congressional Research Service.

I couldn't find the Congressional Research Service report Kuhl cites, but the Kaiser Family Foundation's S-CHIP page has a report on Family Coverage that contains the same numbers.  The states Kuhl listed do have a high percentage of adult enrollment, because S-CHIP allows states to spend S-CHIP dollars on adults (mainly parents and pregnant moms) if they've already covered children under Medicaid.  Here's why:

In 2000, based on research showing the benefits for children of parent coverage, federal SCHIP waiver guidelines were issued permitting family coverage under certain conditions. In 2001, the Bush Administration released a broader waiver initiative, called the Health Insurance Flexibility and Accountability (HIFA) initiative, which encouraged waivers that used Medicaid and SCHIP funds to cover uninsured adults [...]

So, the coverage of adults was increased by the Bush administration, which now uses the waiver they issued as a basis for vetoing S-CHIP.   Strange, to say the least.

The reason that 500,000 children don't have coverage while some states are covering adults is because of the state/federal partnership on Medicaid.  States choose how much they spend on Medicaid in general, and S-CHIP in particular, and some states are far more generous than others.  This fact sheet from the Kaiser Foundation shows the variations across states.   There are a dozen states, most of them big states in the Southwest, where over 20% of the eligible children lack coverage. 

Finally, it's worth a peek at another Kaiser report on the basic problem which sparked the S-CHIP changes: the rising cost of health care, which has led to more uninsured families:

[T]he analysis shows that 48 percent of the increase in uninsured children from 2005 to 2006 was among families with incomes between 200% and 399% of the federal poverty level (roughly $40,000 to $80,000 for a family of four in 2006). Among kids, the share with employer-sponsored insurance declined by 1.2 percentage points, but there was no change in the share with Medicaid or SCHIP coverage to offset the employer decline since most children in this income group are not eligible for public coverage under current rules.

This is why states like New York want to raise eligibility requirements for S-CHIP.  The working poor and lower-middle-class can't afford health insurance, and their employers aren't providing it. 

Randy Kuhl's blog, and the Ontario GOP blog, take encouragement from a USA Today/Gallup poll on S-CHIP.  Both note that a majority of those polled (55%) said they were "somewhat concerned" (33%) or "very concerned" (22%) that S-CHIP would be an incentive for the middle class to drop private health insurance.   And another majority (52%) preferred Bush's plan to limit S-CHIP to a family of 4 making less than $41K, versus the Democrats' plan to make the upper limit $61K.

Both Kuhl the the Ontario GOP omit another interesting statistic from that poll.  When asked who they trust to get S-CHIP right, 52% say that they trust the Democrats.  Only 32% trust the President.   Another interesting fact:  17% of the respondents were following S-CHIP "very closely", and 34% "somewhat closely".  Almost half of the public (49%) are following the issue "not too closely" or "not at all".

So, when a generally uninformed public is presented specific facts on S-CHIP, they tend to agree with Republicans.  When those facts are absent, their general distrust of the President governs their opinions.  The news on S-CHIP could be worse, but this certainly doesn't qualify as good news for Republicans.

Also, it's interesting to see Republicans in the same position where Democrats usually find themselves.  The Republicans' position is based on a careful reading of the details.  Democrats are aiming straight for the gut.  When half of the public doesn't really care, the gut carries the day.

Update:  Via pollster.com, here's the Gallup writeup on the poll.

As noted in Rochesterturning, Massa raised the most of any challenger in the Western New York Congressional races, and Kuhl raised the least of any incumbent.   That said, everyone's raising significant cash, especially considering that we're thirteen months away from the 2008 election.  This means that the Rochester media market, which is an important one for the 25th, 26th and 29th districts, will be saturated with advertising a year from now.   Since 2008 is also a presidential year, I assume that a major canvassing and get-out-the-vote effort will complement the massive advertising blitz.

Based on Massa's plan to raise $3 million, the likelihood that Kuhl will match Massa's fundraising, and the involvement of third parties, the 29th may see $6-8 million spent on the 2008 race.   Since the Massa campaign makes much of Kuhl's corporate donations, and the Kuhl campaign likes to ding Massa for raising money from out-of-state liberals, money will probably become a major issue in next year's campaign.  

In other money news, today's Elmira Star-Gazette carries the Gannett News Service story on the 29th's money race. 

I saw three Republican comments this weekend that sum up the seriousness of the S-CHIP dilemma for the GOP.  All of them show how deeply the Bush Administration has damaged the party, and how it has given Democrats the high ground on issues that used to be Republican bread-and-butter.

The first was in Stuart Rothenberg's column, in which a "GOP insider" says:

If we had been talking about cutting spending and waste in government for years, we could oppose SCHIP. But now we are finally going to get religion on spending?

The significance of this observation goes far beyond S-CHIP.   Before the Bush Administration, Republicans used to be able to present themselves as a bulwark against excessive spending. 
Now, the Republican party is associated with spending of the kind that's never been seen in the history of this country.  In Iraq, we are paying mercenaries triple or quadruple what we pay soldiers, and we are employing more mercenaries there than we are military personnel.  At home, when Katrina hit, the panicked Bush administration simply passed out cash, with no controls and little hope that it would solve anyone's long-term problems.  As Ron Paul said during his Friday interview on the NewsHour:

People don't believe the government any more. They think the government is that group of people who take money from us and pass it out in places like New Orleans and accomplish nothing. [...]

Young people, especially, don't expect to get any Social Security. So conditions are just ripe for this, because we have an imminent bankruptcy coming on. And people are sensing this.

Paul's interview is worth watching in its entirety, because he is the only Republican candidate who acknowledges that the runaway deficit spending of the last 7 years is a legacy that will haunt this country for generations.   Paul also uses the term "corporatism" to describe the government's support of Halliburton and Blackwater in the guise of  "free markets".  Expect to hear that word frequently from the Democratic nominee for President, as well from Eric Massa, as the campaign progresses.

Ron Paul's views on the deficit would put him squarely in the mainstream of Republicans in years past.  While today's Republican party treats Paul like a crazy uncle,  the Democrats will run on a platform of fiscal responsibility.   It's beyond ironic that their platform will use much of the same principled, sane and conservative reasoning as Rep. Paul, without his talk of abolishing the Federal Reserve and going back to the gold standard.

The final Republican comment is Randy Kuhl's:  “The president has let the debate on health care down by not offering an alternative.”  Let's unpack that statement.

In the recent past, Republicans could usually make political hay by criticizing welfare programs.  Nixon's campaign rhetoric about "welfare queens" is perhaps the most memorable, but bashing welfare was a reliable Republican talking point for a couple of decades.   Those days are gone, due mainly to the Clinton administration's welfare reforms.  Those bi-partisan reforms taught the Democrats an important political lesson:  It's OK to say that welfare programs don't work, as long as you couple your critique with a positive reform agenda. 

The success of the Clinton-era welfare reforms showed that vast majority of Americans are unhappy with the way that welfare works, yet they believe that we have a responsibility to help the poor.   This large majority also believes that welfare should be "a hand up, not a hand out", and should focus on breaking the cycle of poverty. 

S-CHIP, for all its flaws, is not a mere handout.   Making sure that children have health care is an investment in ending poverty, because children who have a regular physician have a better chance to succeed in school.  And treating simple childhood ailments like ear infections and asthma before they become life-threatening (and expensive) emergencies saves us all money.   For these reasons, the current Republican strategy of attacking the parents as irresponsible is a non-starter, because the hope of S-CHIP is that it can help the children of the irresponsible become a little more responsible.

When Randy Kuhl said that Bush needs to present an alternative, he recognizes that Republicans have failed to propose any meaningful welfare reform.   The "welfare queen" rhetoric of the 70's and 80's won't cut it anymore, and the Bush Administration has failed Republicans by showing absolutely no leadership on this issue.

The S-CHIP debate shows just how much the last 7 years have cost Republicans, and these three comments show that quite a few Republicans understand that.   What's taken a few short years to undo may take the Republicans years to fix.  In the meantime, Randy Kuhl's loyalty to the Bush administration will continue to damage his hopes for a 2008 victory.

Randy Kuhl's latest blog entries concern the vaccination advice given to the staff of the House Homeland Security Committee.   Those staffers were advised to get shots protecting them from Hepatitis A & B, tetanus, diptheria and influenza before attending a NASCAR race.  Kuhl considers this advice "ridiculous" and says it demonstrates "the Democratic elitist attitude".  He links to the Washington Times and Charlotte Observer stories on this issue.

The USA Today story has a different take:

There may be less to this story than it appears at first blush.  Homeland Security chair Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., said immunization instructions are commonly given when aides are sent to examine health care facilities -- which were also part of the NASCAR trips. Those trips, by the way, were designed to let panel aides research public health preparedness at mass gatherings.

Thompson also noted that the immunizations were optional, not mandatory.

The Charlotte Observer also had this to say, from the Republican head of the Alabama DHS:

Jim Walker, Alabama's director of homeland security, said the congressional committee aides who visited Talladega worked hard. He said they were trying to determine whether the state and federal emergency response system was adequate to handle a situation at such a large event.

"I might have been a little skeptical about this visit coming in, but these folks worked," Walker said.

He said the aides went on patrols with law enforcement, toured facilities and interviewed first responders, hazardous materials teams and other officials.

Here's a fact the newspapers missed:  Every child and adolescent in the United States should be vaccinated against Hepatitis A&B, Tetanus and Diptheria.  That's according to the elitists at the Centers for Disease Control.  The only "additional" vaccination in the list is influenza. I'll bet that Randy gets a yearly flu shot himself, since those silly Democrats at the CDC recommend that everyone over 50 should have an influenza vaccination.

Given the recent performance of the Department of Homeland Security, I'd expect Kuhl to endorse, rather than ridicule, legitimate oversight. 

Randy Kuhl has been posting "Budget Crisis" updates on his blog.  The "crisis" is due to the Congress failing to pass all appropriations bills before October 1, the start of the new fiscal year.

Today's entry calls out Veterans' and Defense appropriations for special attention.  Kuhl says "Our veterans and our troops must be a top priority for this Congress".   It's good that Kuhl wrote "this Congress", because in the most recent comparable term of Congress, the first session of the 109th, the Defense Appropriation bill for the next fiscal year did not pass the House until December 19.

I looked through Kuhl's web site and didn't see any complaints about making our troops almost the last priority during his first term in Congress.

Today's McClatchy newspapers carry an interesting analysis of the current veto threats issued by the White House. There are 10 domestic spending bills under veto threat by the White House. That's a good percentage of the domestic spending legislation before Congress. So, Kuhl's argument that he isn't a Bush rubberstamp is enabled by the Bush administration's new-found spending restraint.

The story also questions Kuhl's claim that S-CHIP is a "Democrat Bill":

House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, for example, said the proposal was put together without input from Republicans.

That isn't true. Senior Republicans such as Sens. Charles Grassley of Iowa, the senior Republican on the Senate Finance Committee and a fiscal conservative, and Orrin Hatch of Utah helped draft the bill, and 18 Republicans in the Senate and 45 in the House of Representatives voted for it.

Moreover, Grassley contests Bush's objections to the children's health insurance bill.