Smith goes to the mat for America's needy(RINO alert)

The Oregonian ^ | December 02, 2005 | editor things

[crazyhorse691]

The GOP senator from Oregon stands up to his party and says he won't vote for a bill that cuts Medicaid and food stamps.

Oregon Sen. Gordon Smith burnished his credentials this week as a leading Republican voice against dismantling the nation's health-care safety net.

Actually, he's the leading Republican voice, according to somebody who ought to know: Ron Pollack, head of Families USA, a health-care consumer advocacy group based in Washington, D.C.

"Senator Smith has been extraordinarily effective and tenacious" in battling proposed steep cuts in the Medicaid and food-stamp programs, Pollack said in an interview. "He is clearly the acknowledged leader in this fight. Without question, he has become the most powerful person in Congress for determining Medicaid cuts."

That's why Pollack was in Portland on Wednesday. He wanted to stand side by side with the Oregon senator at a news conference where Smith declared he will vote against the federal budget bill if it includes the draconian Medicaid and food-stamp reductions.

And draconian is the correct adjective. Under the House budget bill, nearly 16,000 Oregon households -- the working poor, mostly -- would be chopped from the food-stamp program. The House bill would also eliminate Medicaid health coverage for nearly 25,000 low-income Oregonians, eroding the foundation of the entire Oregon Health Plan.

Now magnify all that hardship to encompass the entire nation. It's unconscionable that congressional leaders would seek to reduce the national deficit by decimating services for children, the elderly and the needy. That's true at any time, and especially right now when the whole Gulf Coast lies ravaged by storms.

Smith isn't alone in this fight. Oregon's other senator, Democrat Ron Wyden, serves with him on the Finance Committee and also is vigorously opposed to the Medicaid and food-stamp cuts. Smith, though, is the one feeling all the heat, as he's bucking the top dogs of his own party.

His harshest critics on the home front are reluctant to give him much credit. They're unhappy that he voted against opening the Arctic wilderness to oil exploration, then turned around and voted for a Senate budget bill that allows the drilling. They're not satisfied with his explanation that he felt he had to support the final bill because it included provisions preventing the deep Medicaid and food-stamp cuts. They point to his support of permanent tax cuts that benefit mainly the wealthy and call him a faux moderate Republican.

But Smith sure looked like the real thing in March when he broke ranks by sponsoring a successful amendment to delete all Medicaid cuts from next year's budget. A month later he walked out of negotiations on the subject with Republican leaders. Since then he has emerged as the leader of a loose alliance of seven GOP senators who could have the votes to decide the outcome of the looming budget battle.

Smith's task is far from over. He and his breakaway Republican allies will come under withering pressure when Congress reconvenes Dec. 12. He will have to fight hard to hold them together.

It's a worthy fight, though, and exactly the kind of leadership Oregonians hoped for when they sent Smith to Washington. Americans in every corner of the country should wish him well.

[bybybill]

So, the Jack Murtha strategy has got a new fan, don`t stay and fight, instead RUN

[pillbox_girl]

Oh please.

That comment was unworthy and insulting. And not applicable.

If anyone's fought the good fight in Oregon, it's me. The problem here is that the Oregon Republican Party long ago ceased to give me anything worth fighting for.