An email I received concerning the South Carolina Primary from South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint contains the following passage:

"Washington experience is the problem, not the solution. We cannot afford to have a President who has fought for amnesty for illegal immigrates, voted against the Bush Tax Cuts, and curtailed our First Amendment rights in the ill-conceived campaign finance legislation. I urge you to watch this video about the qualities I believe our next President must possess in order to revive the Reagan Coalition. We've come a long way since 1994. But all of our hard work will be in vain if we fail to make the right decision in the voting both this Saturday."

Doesn't take a genius to figure out that DeMint is not supporting his Senate colleague,John McCain. Kinda makes me wonder how many Republican Senators are supporting Senator McCain? Amnesty proponent Lindsey Graham doesn't count and neither does Independent-Democrat Joe Lieberman. By the way, Senator DeMint is on record supporting Governor Romney.

SCHIP Part II cont.

Michelle Malkin has the latest roll call on the Senate passing 64-30 another version of the children's health insurance program which will be vetoed by the President.

The Senate acted after the bill was approved by House of Representatives last week in a 265-142 vote that was short of the two-thirds majority needed to overturn a veto by Bush. Bush vetoed an earlier version of the bill that the House last month failed to override. The bill would provide $60 billion in funding for the program over five years, compared with the current $25 billion five-year funding level. The tobacco tax increase, raising the tax on cigarettes by 61 cents to $1 per pack, would cover the added cost.

Senator Jim DeMint applauds the benefits of a compromise bill offered by Mel Martinez.

Rather than expand the government-run SCHIP program to cover middle-income children in homes making more than $80,000 a year (which will include over 70% of America's children), our plan reauthorizes SCHIP to ensure poor children continue to receive health care. The plan goes further to tackle the problem of the uninsured by providing a tax credit to middle class families for their children's health insurance.
This would allow families to purchase health plans for their kids that they choose, rather than being handed a one-size-fits-all Washington-run plan.

Another benefit of this approach is that unlike the Democrat's SCHIP proposal, our plan would not force children off private insurance and onto government plans. By turning patients into shoppers we will inject more choice and competition into the health care market resulting in more competitive prices for health care premiums. All told, the tax credit approach provides health care to 10.5 million children whereas the Democrat SCHIP plan forces 1.2 million kids onto government rolls. Through this innovative and (free market)approach we offer better coverage to far more.