The GOP is helping Hillary Clinton - And you thought there were two parties

Big Government Republican Socialism

• The "small government" GOP is a fraud.  Republicans are simply big government loving FDR New Deal leftists who happen to like guns (for now).

(The Atlantic)  -  Improbable as it may sound, House Republicans are on the verge of approving, without much fanfare, a major priority of Hillary Clinton's.

When Clinton ran for president in 2008, she touted her role as first lady in "designing and championing" the Children's Health Insurance Program, or CHIP, which provided coverage for millions of children whose parents did not qualify for Medicaid but could not afford private insurance. At the time President Clinton signed the law in 1997, it constituted the largest expansion of government-funded children's health insurance since the enactment of Medicaid in 1965.

On Tuesday, Republicans unveiled legislation that would extend CHIP for another two years, without spending cuts or changes of any kind. The program's funding is due to expire at the end of September, making this an unusual case of Congress moving to act well in advance of a deadline. You won't hear much about the CHIP extension from Republicans, however. They are supporting it to gain Democratic backing for one of Speaker John Boehner's top goals: a package that permanently prevents steep cuts in Medicare payments to doctors and institutes a few long-sought reforms to the entitlement program. 

Another GOP Entitlement Program

In 1997 the "small government" GOP House under Speaker Newt Gingrich 

passed, and eagerly funded, yet another Federal entitlement program:  

the Children's Health Insurance Program.

The so-called "doc fix" is an annual headache for both parties, and repealing it for good has commanded most of the attention inside the Beltway. Yet extending funding for children's health insurance is equally significant, and its inclusion in the bill represents a rare bipartisan breakthrough, as well as a sign that the nation's improved fiscal footing is helping to ease the gridlock in Congress.

"The Children's Health Insurance Program has, from its origination, been a bipartisan program," Pollack noted. In Congress, it was the brainchild of the late Senator Ted Kennedy and Senator Orrin Hatch, a Republican of Utah who now heads the Finance Committee. Hillary Clinton, just three years removed from her failed bid to shepherd universal health care into law, championed the more limited insurance expansion from the White House. 

It was ultimately included in a larger budget deal that Republicans passed and President Clinton signed in 1997. A decade later, Hillary Clinton drew some criticism for embellishing her role in the program's passage, given that she stayed mostly behind the scenes after stumbling on health care earlier in her husband's tenure. "Success has more than one set of parents in the political arena," Pollack said. "Clearly, she played a significant role."

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