Be afraid. Be very afraid. Don’t go into the halls of Congress after dark. Don’t travel through Council Bluffs, Iowa when Congress is on recess. You might meet up with the truly scary Steven King, Steve King, the wild-eyed Neocon who represents one small and apparently deranged part of an otherwise wonderful state–Iowa. One of our favorite places. Keep California…except Carmel. Iowa is the place. You’ll never meet nicer people. Yes, Iowa’s motto is “Iowa, the Gateway to Nebraska” if you ask people on the western bank of the Missouri. But, if going through that gateway your car breaks down…relax. These are people who know how to be people.
And yet there is Steve King, the merchant of mayhem, the dean of disaster. For some reason, he votes against things that Iowans would never reject. For example, he somehow persuades Iowans that SCHIP, which goes to the hardest working families in the U.S., the working poor, like the janitor in a building, or school bus driver for a private company or an auto salesman or a person working in a retail store is a bad idea. These are people who work long hours to support their families but don’t make much money. And they are not asking for health care for themselves. They take their chances. They just want health care for their kids. If you have had a small child who is really sick at ten o’clock on a Saturday night, you don’t need a Steven King novel. You’ve known real terror.
Steve King was a big supporter of the war in Iraq–of going and of staying. He is fond of saying that downtown Baghdad is safer than Detroit. He may have some sympathy from some Detroiters who live in blighted neighborhoods. But some people looked up the stats and ridiculed him so badly as a fool and bigot that a man who had any respect for himself would have probably resigned.
So, here’s what Steve King had to say about health care for poor children, the SCHIP program…which is only for American citizens by the way. All others go to the emergency room. SCHIP finally passed, by the way, as soon as the Democratic Congress was elected in 2006. Nancy Pelosi, grandmother of five, ran it through like a weasel through a dog pen. And Steve King? What was his feeble argument? Blame someone, even if what you are saying is not true, which it is not, by the way. Studies show that only a handful of illegal immigrants even try to fake their way on to Medicaid. But to Steve king, if it sounds like it could be true, do the right thing for the Neocon Party…lie to your constituents to get them to do what they would never do if they did know the truth.
By the way, CBO did not say it would cost $6.5 billion for SCHIP to cover illegal aliens. Only about 11 aliens have ever been found to have tricked their way onto Medicaid. Actually, we have made it so restrictive over time that, for example, not long ago 11,000 people in Virginia actually dropped off Medicaid because it became too difficult to prove their eligibility. Actually, what CBO said was that if a different bill, the illegal alien bill passed, it would bring in enough people that the subsequent costs for those people when they became citizens could be $6.5 billion. But Steve King does not bother with the facts. He is either a fool or a liar. Either way, the people of Iowa are ill-served.
Steve King is not unique. He’s simply easy to pick on because he is such a twirp. There are tons of lying little creeps on the Right side of the aisle in Congress. From Virginia Foxx on down. Actually, no. It doesn’t go down any lower than Virginia Foxx.