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DEL.ICIO.USNotes from a Republican breakfast
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Georgia Republican Foundation had a breakfast meeting in Cobb County this morning, the first hosted by the new state GOP chairman, Sue Everhart.
The gathering was worth a few notations:
— The Foundation is a collection of reliable GOP donors, and attracted many of the same people who would truck down I-75 later in the morning for the Saxby Chambliss fund-raiser with Vice President Dick Cheney.
All except one, perhaps.
That was state Supreme Court Justice Robert Benham, who was seated at the same table with Chambliss and his colleague in the U.S. Senate, Johnny Isakson. Benham is up for re-election next year, just like Chambliss, and — while his seat is non-partisan — he’s clearly trying to blunt any GOP-sponsored effort to unseat him, like that faced by Justice Carol Hunstein in ’06.
— Chambliss urged attendees to pick up a CD that explained his stance on issues, including immigration, which is still a touchy subject. “You sent us to Washington to solve problems, not to let problems hang out there for the next generation to solve,” he said.
— Isakson gave a brief rundown on the situation in Iraq, dividing his remarks into “good news and other news.”
He and Chambliss would vote against any effort to revisit Iraq strategy before the well-advertised date of Sept. 15, Isakson said. “When you let the world know what your game plan is, the dumbest thing in the world you can do is change it.”
— On the federal program known nationally as SCHIP, and in Georgia as Peachcare, which provides health insurance for the children of the working poor: Isakson faulted the Bush administration for waivers that allowed the program to spin out of control, but also condemned Democratic attempts to widen the program.
Current Democratic plans, he said, are a backdoor attempt at a national health insurance program that would expand eligibility to anyone within 400 percent of the federal poverty level “whether or not they have children.”
“It’s a dangerous, precipitous path that we’re on,” Isakson said.
Isakson said he and other Republicans are working on an alternative plan that would give every American a $4,500 tax credit for private health insurance policies they purchase.
The poor, who don’t pay that much in taxes, would receive a $4,500 voucher with which to purchase insurance.
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By Anonymous
July 17, 2007 7:24 PM | Link to this
Correction to a typical misleading comment: The poor pay plenty of taxes. They pay little income tax, but they pay by far the largest share of payroll and sales taxes.
You know who pays very little tax? The wealthy, who have a smaller proportion of their wealth due to payroll and income, and more to capital-gains and estates… both of which, by a huge coincidence, are the GOP’s top economic priority to eliminate.