Rachel Maddow makes Pat Buchanan's head explode as she easily exposes the underbelly of conservative politics. If you're poor and need help---you're socialist scum---and screw your kids too.
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Download There is no defending Bush's veto over SCHIP and as you watch this fairly long clip you'll see what conservatives like Pat really think about anyone that makes 60-80,000 dollars. I'd love to see Pat in a new reality TV show on VH-1. We'll put him in an apartment in LA, with a wife and two kids and a 60,000 dollar salary and a dog named Larry Craig. Then we'll watch him try to buy food and clothing and, most importantly, health care for his family and see what happens.
I'd like to know when was the last time Pat had to worry about an electric bill. These people make you feel embarrassed being an American. But then we have a Rachel Maddow to make us proud again. There really is no argument that he can make which seems rational.
MADDOW: The reason that he‘s standing up against this program is because this is a phenomenally successful program that is socialized medicine, in the same way that Medicare is socialized medicine and Medicaid is socialized medicine, in the sense that the government helps out in a market that‘s broken.
That‘s incredibly dangerous to the Republican world view that government can never help.
BUCHANAN: Why don‘t you let...
MADDOW: So, they have got to shut down this working program, so they can continue to say that government is the problem.
Full transcript below the fold via Hardball
PAT BUCHANAN, NBC POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, let‘s talk about the politics of it, Chris.
Look, the Republican Party is supposed to be a party that is against socialized medicine. You have got a doubling of the size of an entitlement program by the federal government, takes it from $25 billion to $60 billion, doubles the number of kids, almost, under it. This is creeping socialism.
More than that, Chris, this country is headed down the road to a massive collision with these entitlement programs, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, which we can‘t afford. This country cannot be now expanding entitlement programs. Everybody that‘s looked at these programs knows that can‘t happen.
MATTHEWS: What do you make, Rachel, of the moving up of the ceiling of eligibility to $80,000 in some states?
MADDOW: I think that makes—it takes account of what the reality is for families and the cost of living and the price of health care.
Listen, if—if we were playing fantasy politics, instead of fantasy baseball, this—this—this bill would win the World Series. This is a bill that expands private health insurance for poor kids, and pays for it by raising the cigarette tax. Like, you can‘t make this a prettier bill unless you added puppies to it or something. I mean, this is a...
MATTHEWS: Well, it does—it does go up to three or four times the poverty level. But you would call that poverty?
MADDOW: But—no, but you can‘t—listen, you‘re—this is about getting eight million kids who are uninsured in this country some sort of health—health care. This would get rid of half of the uninsured kids in the country and get them under the private health insurance system.
BUCHANAN: But wait a minute. Wait a minute, Rachel.
MADDOW: Yes.
BUCHANAN: We‘re not talking about whether they are going to be deprived of health care. We‘re talking about who should pay for the health care of folks making $60,000 and $80,000 a year. I think they should.
MADDOW: But, Pat, eight million kids don‘t have health insurance right now.
BUCHANAN: I think they should.
MADDOW: Nobody‘s paying for their health care.
BUCHANAN: But the point is not that they don‘t get cared, but who—who is paying for these things? I don‘t think you ought to transfer the burden from folks who are making $60,000 and $80,000 a year should get something from people who are making more. They should pay for it themselves.
MADDOW: Who is paying right—who is paying—who is—who is paying right now for the eight million kids who don‘t have health insurance? Those kids...
BUCHANAN: They‘re paying—families are paying themselves or they get it free.
MATTHEWS: OK.
MADDOW: They get it free.
MATTHEWS: Let me...
MADDOW: That‘s what President Bush said. Oh, you can just go to the emergency room for treatment.
MATTHEWS: Let—let me ask an old...
MADDOW: That‘s not a health care system. That‘s a policy failure.
MATTHEWS: This is really about health care financing, not health care.
Let me ask you, Rachel, where are we going to get the extra $35 billion? Where is it going to come from?
MADDOW: Cigarette tax, 61 cent increase on the cigarette tax.
MATTHEWS: But that‘s not been passed. But that hasn‘t been passed.
MADDOW: That hasn‘t been—that‘s what they‘re proposing to do to pay for it.
MATTHEWS: But—but that‘s...
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: That‘s not part of this bill.
BUCHANAN: Excuse me. Chris...
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: There‘s no reason to believe that that will happen, is there?
MADDOW: There‘s—that‘s what the Democrats are proposing to spend it on. The Bush...
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: Proposing, but I will gladly pay you on Tuesday for a hamburger today. Once again, they‘re borrowing money, saying they will some day pay for it.
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: Do you really believe a cigarette tax will be signed by this president, an increase in the cigarette tax will be signed by George Bush?
MADDOW: If Bush didn‘t sign it, I would still be in favor of this bill. And I think 72 percent of Americans would still be in favor of it, too.
BUCHANAN: What are you talking about?
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: So, we‘re going to borrow the money from the Chinese?
MADDOW: No, listen.
(CROSSTALK)
MADDOW: No, listen. Right now, listen, George Bush discussing fiscal conservatism on this issue would be like you telling me that Pat Buchanan just discovered multiculturalism right now. It doesn‘t make any sense.
This guy airlifted $12 billion in cash...
BUCHANAN: All right.
MADDOW: ... into Iraq in shrink-wrapped bricks...
BUCHANAN: All right.
MADDOW: ... and didn‘t care when half of it walked off. You can‘t discover conservatism now.
BUCHANAN: But, all right, look, Rachel, I think you have got a valid point. You have got a valid point, in that George Bush has not been an economizer. But I think it‘s good that he starts.
But let‘s take the cigarette tax. Who do you think pays that tax? It‘s working-class folks. It‘s African-Americans. It‘s people who enjoy cigarettes. You hammer them constantly with taxes, sin taxes. These things go after people who work for a living. This is outrageous, that you‘re taking their money and paying for a benefit to people making $60,000 and $80,000 a year.
MADDOW: Pat, you can yell about sin, and you can yell about socialism, and you can call this communist, and you can do whatever you want. I think that people in this country are ready for something to be done about health care. And they don‘t care what names you throw at it.
BUCHANAN: You know...
(CROSSTALK)
MADDOW: People want eight million American kids to have health insurance.
MATTHEWS: Well, let me ask you...
BUCHANAN: Rachel, that doesn‘t make it right, because want it and they may vote it.
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: On the merits, Rachel...
MADDOW: Yes.
MATTHEWS: ... do you believe in a cigarette tax to pay for this, on the merits?
MADDOW: I think that a—if a cigarette tax could pay for it, yes, I believe in that. But, if it wasn‘t the cigarette tax, I would still be for it. This is...
MATTHEWS: What tax would you be for to pay for it?
MADDOW: At this point, this is the—if there‘s one thing that‘s going to be added to the deficit, I would add this, and I would bring our troops home from Iraq to pay for it. How about that?
MATTHEWS: But—but—OK, well, you know, this is a marginal question. He‘s going to stay in that war. He ain‘t getting out of that war or not. It‘s a question of whether we do this health care bill or not.
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: Bush ain‘t coming home with the troops.
MADDOW: The health—the health care bill is $30 billion. Bush is saying that‘s absolutely unfindable, unspendable.
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: Go ahead, Pat.
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: I‘m sorry. Pat‘s turn.
BUCHANAN: The other night, our colleague Tim Russert hit the—hit all those Democratic candidates, where they‘re going to cut or what taxes they‘re going to raise to save these gigantic Social Security programs. And here we are talking about increasing entitlement programs?
MADDOW: But you guys are completely missing the forest for the trees.
Come on. This president, this administration, with a Republican-led Congress for the whole first part of his term, turned the biggest surpluses in history into the biggest deficits in history. Now, all of a sudden, there can‘t be health care for poor kids because we‘re worried about the deficit, because we‘re worried about the deficit.
BUCHANAN: That doesn‘t mean you keep going—if we‘re going down the wrong road, Rachel, you don‘t keep going down it.
I credit the president with at least standing for—up against a program which, you are right, is very, very popular. It took guts to do this. And, when Republicans act with guts, I don‘t know whether that‘s politically smart, but it‘s about time they did the right thing.
(CROSSTALK)
MADDOW: The reason that he‘s standing up against this program is because this is a phenomenally successful program that is socialized medicine, in the same way that Medicare is socialized medicine and Medicaid is socialized medicine, in the sense that the government helps out in a market that‘s broken.
That‘s incredibly dangerous to the Republican world view that government can never help.
BUCHANAN: Why don‘t you let...
MADDOW: So, they have got to shut down this working program, so they can continue to say that government is the problem.
BUCHANAN: Well, you know, I don‘t understand this. You say the Republicans are voting—are stopping a program that would be good for them politically.
MADDOW: Yes.
BUCHANAN: Isn‘t that what we elect people to do, to act on principle, even when it hurts them politically?
(CROSSTALK)
BUCHANAN: For heaven‘s sakes, Rachel, I agree with you.
Look, it‘s unpopular, what the Republicans are doing. But, if they had done the unpopular thing again and again and again, this country would not be in the strategic, fiscal mess it is in right now.
MADDOW: Pat, the Republican health care plan right now, the proposal for fixing the health care disaster on this program, could be written on the back of an envelope in invisible ink, and still nobody would miss it. There‘s no Republican proposal. The Democrats have come up with something here that would work.
BUCHANAN: You‘re idea is we have to have a national health care program. And the Republicans aren‘t doing what‘s right because they‘re not going in your direction. They‘re not socialists, Rachel.
MATTHEWS: All I know is this: I think we need a national health care system and the Democrats say they‘re for one. But when it comes time to create one, they don‘t even have the guts to finance it. If we‘re going to have a 200 billion dollar health care program, like Hillary and the others are talking about, you have to be willing to finance it. If all they‘re going to do is a number of saying, someday I‘ll raise the cigarette tax, that‘s not exactly a profile in courage, Rachel.
Either you‘re going to pay for this stuff or stop talking about it.
Hillary and Barack and Edwards are all talking about national health care. And all they can think of is some cigarette tax they know they will never pass. Why don‘t they put up their money where their mouth is, and say, we‘re for national health. And damn it, we‘re going to pay for it. We‘re going to cut something here. We‘re going to raise taxes here. It‘s going to add up. Why don‘t they say that?
MADDOW: I think whatever they proposed for paying this would pass. Seventy two percent of people in this country want this program extended, because right now the people who pay for it are all of us who have private insurance, who are subsidizing the emergency rooms, and the kids that don‘t get health care.
BUCHANAN: This veto is going to be sustained. Bush is going to win this fight.
