The President may be keeping a low-profile in the budget debate, but there is one shutdown he is concerned about–Planned Parenthood’s. According to reports, the White House is more involved in the negotiations than most Americans realize.
While Congress is preoccupied, the President’s team has apparently been hosting a series of hush-hush meetings with abortion groups to reassure them about their federal funding. Politico broke the story late yesterday, and sources familiar with the talks say the President is mapping out a plan to protect Planned Parenthood’s tax dollars.
When reporters started sniffing around, Planned Parenthood released a statement confirming the alliance. “We have a positive relationship with the Obama administration,” said Executive Vice President Dawn Laguens and we applaud its strong commitment to reproductive health, family planning, and preventative health care. President Obama has reinforced this commitment by calling for an increased investment in [our]… program.”
The administration can conspire with the abortion movement all it wants–but at the end of the day, the White House is guaranteeing Planned Parenthood a seat at a bargaining table that Democrats refuse to visit. With only seven days on the clock, Senate liberals seem about as interested in passing a budget today as they were all of last year–which is, not at all.
“The Senate says [they] have a plan,” said a frustrated John Boehner (R-Ohio), “so pass the thing alright and send it over here, and let’s have real negotiations rather than sitting over there rooting for a government shutdown.”
If the Senate won’t act, then the House will act enough for the both of them. Today, Speaker Boehner and House Republicans voted on H.R. 1235, the Government Shutdown Prevention Act. Essentially, this is H.R. 1–but the bill is repackaged with a warning that if the upper chamber doesn’t act by April 8, members won’t get paid, and the House plan will become law. Liberals are calling it “symbolic”–and they’re right. It’s symbolic of all that Republicans have accomplished and Democrats haven’t.
As the media tries to predict which party will take the fall for a government shutdown, the blame lies where it did in 2010–with liberal leaders, whose inactivity is the reason our government has operated for 184 days without a budget. Americans understand this as well.
A new Rasmussen poll shows 57 percent of voters are fine with a partial shutdown of the federal government if that’s what it takes to get deeper cuts in federal government spending. House Republicans have nothing to apologize for. They’ve passed two plans in 40 days. That’s double the number former Speaker Nancy Pelosi passed all last year when her party controlled the entire Congress!
LifeNews.com Note: Tony Perkins is the president of the Family Research Council and a former member of the Louisiana state legislature.
