Jessica Robinson, press secretary for Gov. Matt Blunt, responded this afternoon to a query about where the governor stands regarding the reauthorization of the federal SCHIP (State Children’s Health Insurance Program), the health care program for low-income children.

The House and Senate have voted to reauthorize the program and to bolster its funding so it covers more children. President George W. Bush has promised to veto the program if the expansions stay in it.

The governor’s father, U.S. Rep. Roy Blunt, R-Strafford, voted against the reauthorization to show support for the president. U.S. Sen. Christopher S. Bond, R-Mo., and U.S. Rep. JoAnn Emerson, R-Cape Girardeau, joined the state’s congressional Democrats in voting for the program.

So where does Blunt stand?

“He strongly supports reauthorization,” Robinson said. “But he will not support, endorse or urge the Congress to pass any tax increase.”

(As regulars know, Blunt’s favorite stump phrase is “job-killing taxes.”)

Robinson did not expand on that statement. Which apparently means that the governor either backs Bush’s view of the reauthorization (don’t expand it), or wants Congress to find other spending cuts to pay for an expanded SCHIP.

The state Democratic Party weighed in by declaring, “After slashing more than 28,500 Missouri children off SCHIP, bringing the total number of uninsured Missouri children to more than 127,000, one has to wonder whether Matt Blunt supports the SCHIP reauthorization bill passed last night by the U.S. House of Representatives. Following Gov. Blunt’s massive health care cuts of 2005, more than 73,000 children in Missouri have lost their state-sponsored health insurance. The Governor’s latest health care initiative will do nothing to cover these uninsured children….”

Meanwhile, Blunt’s nemesis — Attorney General Jay Nixon — weighed in with a statement in favor of the congressional SCHIP bill and “called on President Bush to sign the bill…”