Senator Eliot Shapleigh - El Paso, Texas

Which is more important: The welfare of children or welfare for huge corporations?

For decades, Texas has led the nation in uninsured children — and refused federal money to pay for their care.

And since 2003, Texas has handed out hundreds of millions to huge corporations with few, if any, conditions.

Signing the Child Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Bill, President Barack Obama spoke of the toll that being uninsured exacts on families; of sleepless nights spent worrying and of “the decisions no parents should have to make: how long to put off that doctor's appointment, (and) whether to fill that prescription.”

As joblessness swells the ranks of the uninsured, more Texas families are living on the edge of financial ruin.

“We're not a nation that leaves struggling families to fend for themselves ... when they've done everything right,” Obama said earnestly. “No child ... should be receiving primary care in the emergency room in the middle of the night (or be falling) behind in school because he can't hear the teacher or see the blackboard.”

But Texas has long ignored its most vulnerable kids while coddling huge businesses with lavish corporate welfare through the oxymoronically named Texas Enterprise Fund.

Medicaid insures children who live at or below the poverty line, while CHIP insures those whose parents earn twice the poverty level, which is about $44,000 for a family of four.

Federal and state money pay for Medicaid and CHIP. But the feds pick up most of it. Of every CHIP dollar spent in Texas, 72 cents is from Washington.

But the federal allocations are a match of how much Texas spends on these programs.

In 1997, a GOP-controlled Congress approved CHIP and a Democratic president signed it into law. But then-governor George W. Bush refused to call a special legislative session to kick CHIP off, and he malingered on setting eligibility rules or recruiting kids. So, we didn't get CHIP until 1999, leaving millions uninsured for two years.

Once enrollment began, huge numbers were quickly signed up and started seeing doctors and dentistsbefore they were so sick they required costly, extraordinary treatment.

But in 2003, GOP ideologues in the Legislature balanced a budget with a $10 billion hole with draconian cuts to CHIP and Medicaid. Benefits were slashed, eligibility was reduced and enrollment was made so difficult that more than half the CHIP kids were kicked off the rolls.

Since then, enrollment has risen, but not to the levels reached before the 2003 cuts, because Texas still rations CHIP by making enrollment difficult.

And the fiscal impact has been huge. Since 2003, Texas has left almost $1 billion of federal CHIP money on the table, money that would have flowed into every local economy where CHIP enrollees live.

The new CHIP has more federal money, and eligibility can be expanded — but only if the Legislature approves and appropriates the matching funds.

So again, the question arises: Should Texas throw tax money at big corporations or invest it in our children? This time, shouldn't we go with the kids?