Why is it the president is opposed to increasing the number of children insured by the federal insurance law, when the money will come from cigarette taxes? Yes, what a great way to pay for it. Yet he maintains it will be too big a government program.

He is fine with spending $228 billion on the farm bill, which is "giving" taxpayer money away, often without strings - in other words, the farmers and ranchers don't have to live up to stringent environmental preservation conditions to get the handouts and often produce less than healthy commodities, promoting heart disease and obesity.

Oh, and let's not forget the $2.4 trillion cost of invading Iraq and our war in Afghanistan.

So corporate welfare, and unnecessary war are OK; helping working poor families with children, not.

It is the classic conservative lie. The government is not in the business of doing anything good for people who need it. I never will understand how so many conservatives, especially those of the "Christian" variety, don't want to help the poor, which was what Jesus would do.

Obesity is rampant in the country, so the conservatives' pulling physical ed from the schools to save a few nickels has really paid big dividends in health care savings, right?

The examples are endless, but when you have a mechanism in place to pay - that is, cigarette tax - for children's health insurance, and he vetoes it?

I always hoped this president would be a compassionate conservative, but he has proved not to be.