DAVID ESPO, AP
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.
(Original Article)