NYT: Democrats Talk, but Not of Compromise

[Omaha Steve]

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/10/07/sundaytalkshow/index.html?ex=1192420800&en=cd0cc8b0c3af06ea&ei=5043&partner=EXCITE

October 7, 2007, 3:56 pm
Democrats Talk, but Not of Compromise

By Brian Knowlton

Although President Bush has said he is open to compromising with Congress over the State Children’s Insurance Program, or S-Chip, Democrats — aware that his veto of their bill to expand that popular program has left the president in an awkward spot — appeared in no mood Sunday to oblige him. But they were in a mood, on the talk shows, to weigh in on a variety of other issues.

“I hope we override the veto before we start worrying about compromise,” said one Democratic governor, Jon Corzine of New Jersey, on ABC-TV’s “This Week.”

Representative Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker, said that Democrats probably needed only 14 more Republican votes to override a veto and sounded as if she would not want to be in the president’s shoes. “The American people support this overwhelmingly, and nearly 2 to 1 of Republicans support our initiative,” she said on “Fox News Sunday.”

Michael Leavitt, secretary of health and human services, gamely tried to defend the president over what George Stephanopoulos called “by far the least popular” of the president’s four vetoes to date.

”The president just thinks it’s wrong,” he added on ABC, “that some under this bill could receive public subsidy for their health insurance — as high as $83,000 in (income in) their family. We would be encouraging people who currently have insurance to cancel it so that the government can pay for it.”


Mr. Corzine contested the $83,000 figure as exaggerated; moreover, his state had not found a single person who had canceled a private policy to turn to state coverage.

FULL story at link.