Doctor-Lawyer Opposes McConnell

Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell has an actual opponent, undoubtedly the first of several. Dr. Michael G. Cassaro, Esq. of Prospect, announced that he will run for McConnell's seat. (If elected, would we call him the Honorable Senator Dr. Cassaro, Esq.? Good thing we colonists renounced titles.)

Cassaro, according to WHAS 11 Mark Hebert, practices medicine with a specialty in pain management, but was also educated as an engineer and an attorney (though he is not listed in the Louisville Bar Association 2007 Directory).

Perhaps, given that he is a physician, Cassaro can discuss the issue of healthcare with a little more thoughtfulness than the left has shown in the senate race thus far.

Take the issue of the State Children Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). Republicans, including McConnell, agreed to renew the program to give free health insurance for poor children who don't qualify for Medicaid.

The Democrats insisted that the program be increased to cover more children -- those whose family income is well above the poverty line. Under the Democrats' proposed expansion, for example, a family of four with an $84,000 income in New York would qualify for SCHIP. The president correctly vetoed the program as expanded, and McConnell supported the president when the Democrats tried to override the veto.

In response, the Democrats ran ads against McConnell, asserting, in essence, that he hates children (even though he is the father of three girls).

It's the same logic that we saw with the proposed Louisville Library Tax: if you oppose the tax, that means you hate books. But the voters didn't fall for it.

Republicans don't hate small children (or books). To the contrary, as Susan Estrich complained, while promoting her book on the Laura Ingraham show, conservatives buy more books than liberals. And one of the unintended consequences of the Democrats' assault on families and fetuses is that Republicans bear more children than Democrats.

No, McConnell and Republicans agree that poor children need access to affordable healthcare. The issue, however, is how best to accomplish that goal. That's why the Republican leader has urged the Democrats to renew the coverage for those children previously covered -- for whom there is bipartisan support. Instead, the Democrats risk coverage for the neediest children while trying to expand the program.

Legislators draw lines to allocate scarce resources. So the real issue in the SCHIP debate is how far up from the poverty line we draw the line -- three hundred percent, or as the Democrats have demanded, four hundred percent above the poverty line -- or further?

Truthfully, many Democrats don't want to draw a line, any line, because that necessarily means leaving children out, thereby forcing their parents to hold down jobs and buy health insurance. That's why the SCHIP debate, at its core, is about universal health insurance.

Oregon voters recently confronted a ballot initiative that would have imposed universal health care for children, to be funded by cigarette taxes -- virtually the identical plan that Democrats have pushed in Congress. Though more liberal than the average Kentuckian, Oregon voters rejected the plan by a margin of three to two. Notwithstanding the negative advertising funded by out of state interest groups, McConnell 's approach of renewing SCHIP but holding the line on its expansion comports with the values of Kentucky voters.

Why would the Democrats expand SCHIP when we have not yet solved how to fund Social Security? Like building an addition when you can't pay your mortgage, it's just profligate. But Democrats know that the surest way to guarantee an entitlement's permanency is to give the middle class a piece of it. And that is exactly what the SCHIP expansion would do, at least incrementally.

So the question for Dr. Cassaro, Esq., to address when he formally announces his candidacy today, is whether he is ready to practice medicine for the government, if the senate gig doesn't work out. Maybe that's why he hedged his bets and went to law school.

Across the Country, Voters Say "No" to Democrat Taxes

The overwhelming defeat of the occupational tax to fund the Louisville library system reflects voter hostility to similar Democrat plans to raise taxes around the country -- regardless of how laudable the rationale for the tax increase.

In Louisville, the library tax lost by a two to one margin, despite major plugging by Democratic Mayor Jerry Abramson and the reliably liberal Courier-Journal. The defeat of the library tax, however, was not a Louisville phenomenon but rather part of a national trend.

Nearby Indianapolis has a new Republican major, as well as a Republican majority on the city council. Mayor-elect Greg Ballard was outspent but nonetheless defeated the Democrat incumbent who had raised income taxes. The .65 percent income tax increase was devoted to law enforcement -- like libraries, a worthy goal. But the tax hike came at a time when voters were struggling to pay higher tax bills, following a state-ordered reassessment.

Washington state, not usually known as a Republican stronghold, also rejected a ballot initiative to impose higher taxes. Proposition 1 would have made Washington history as the biggest transportation tax proposal ever. The rationale: to improve traffic congestion in the Seattle area. Anyone who has ever driven in Seattle knows that traffic there is a nightmare. So the problem with the ballot initiative was the means -- higher taxes -- rather than the objective.

To protect themselves from future increases, moreover, Washington voters passed a ballot initiative that would require either voter approval or a two-thirds vote of each house to increase taxes.

Oregon voters voted down a 84.5 per pack tax increase for cigarettes -- even though the tax money was supposed to fund children's health insurance. The margin was not even close: 60 to 40. As in Louisville, voters saw through the plea to raise taxes "for the kids."

In Ohio, a bellwether state for the presidential race, Hamilton County residents rejected a proposed sales tax increase plan to fund the county jail. Now that doesn't mean that Ohio voters want criminals roaming their streets; these voters have simply drawn in a line in the sand against new taxes.

Note that all of the foregoing tax proposals were tied to projects that a majority of voters might be inclined to support, if funded in a fiscally responsible way. The voters distinguished between the goal -- libraries, mass transit, children's health insurance, law enforcement, and new jails -- and the means: an unending and ever-escalating tax burden.

The voters have given Republican candidates for '08 a clear road map to election: no new taxes. That's not just a formula to win; it's how to govern.