Posted on 01/02/2018 9:44:50 PM PST by Oshkalaboomboom
Two months before his upset victory over Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election, Donald Trump made an unambiguous commitment that helped rally pro-life Americans to his cause.
He promised to defund Planned Parenthood.
Now, almost a year into his presidency -- during which time the Republican Party has controlled both houses of Congress -- he has not delivered on that promise.
"I am committed to: Defunding Planned Parenthood as long as they continue to perform abortions, and re-allocating their funding to community health centers that provide comprehensive health care for women," Trump wrote in a September 2016 letter to pro-life leaders.
Planned Parenthood has now released its 2016-2017 annual report. It says its affiliates performed 321,384 abortions in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, 2016.
It also says Planned Parenthood received $543.7 million in government money in the year that ended on June 30, 2017 -- which included the first five months of the Trump administration.
Planned Parenthood takes money from federal taxpayers primarily through Medicaid and the Title X Family Planning Program. In 2012, according to a Government Accountability Office analysis cited by the Congressional Research Service in a May 2017 report, Planned Parenthood affiliates received "$400.56 million in Medicaid reimbursements (including both federal and state dollars)" and "$64.35 million in Title X funding."
Three days after he took the oath of office, Trump took an action that caused the International Planned Parenthood Federation to deny itself aid from the U.S. government: He re-instated President Reagan's Mexico City Policy.
That policy, as summarized by CRS, "required foreign non-governmental organizations (NGOs) receiving U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) family planning assistance to certify that they would not perform or actively promote abortion as a method of family planning, even if such activities were undertaken with non-U.S. funds."
The day Trump reinstated the policy, International Planned Parenthood announced it would not comply.
"It means IPPF will lose $100 million USD," the organization said in a press release.
But the Mexico City Policy does not stop federal Medicaid and Title X money from going to domestic Planned Parenthood affiliates -- the affiliates that aborted 321,384 babies in the United States in fiscal 2016.
In May, when Trump sent his budget proposal to Congress, it called for completely defunding Planned Parenthood. The White House put out a fact sheet reminding Americans this was a "campaign promise" the president had made.
"The budget also follows through on a campaign promise and prohibits any funding in the Labor-HHS appropriations bill for certain entities that provide abortions, including Planned Parenthood," said the fact sheet. "This prohibition applies to all funds in the bill, including Medicaid."
The Obamacare repeal bill that passed the House, but not the Senate, included language that, according to the Congressional Budget Office, would have denied Medicaid money to Planned Parenthood for "a one-year period following enactment."
The 1,658-page combined appropriations bill the House passed in September -- but the Senate never voted on -- included language that would have completely defunded Title X of the Public Health Service Act and thus denied Title X money to Planned Parenthood. It said: "None of the funds appropriated in this Act may be used to carry out Title X of the PHS Act."
But the spending bills this Republican Congress has actually passed -- and Trump has signed into law -- have not defunded Planned Parenthood.
In fact, Trump and this Republican Congress have cooperating in enacting five sequential laws to keep the federal government funded. Trump signed the first on April 28 and the most recent on Dec. 22. It will expire on Jan. 19.
All five of these spending laws have permitted federal funding of Planned Parenthood to continue.
If Planned Parenthood has been aborting babies during Trump's first year in office at the same pace as it did in fiscal 2016 (878 per day), it will have aborted 233,548 babies in the 266 days that will pass between the day Trump first signed a federal spending bill that permitted funding of Planned Parenthood and the expiration of the current one.
Trump needs to tell the Republican Congress: He will not sign another spending bill that permits funding of Planned Parenthood.
I’ll guarantee you one thing, if a bill makes it to Trump’s desk, he will sign it.
So whose problem has this been?
We’ve got some folks with their heads up their -—es on Capital Hill, don’t have the slightest idea what to do with their majority.
This year better be better than the last, or we’re going to figuratively have lynch parties on Capital Hill.
So, is it me or is Townhall just becoming more leftard lately?
There’s a whole lot of frustrated NeverTrumpers out there.
They’ve already blown almost every gasket trying to old in the urge to celebrate something Trump did wrong, which proved we should have voted for Cruz all along.
Never-mind that Trump has already demonstrated himself to be a master politician / leader / statesman on Conservatism’s behalf. We should be very happy right now. Instead...
It’s a very strange dynamic watching people who claimed to be praying for a guy like Trump to come along (realizing what he has done), and yet now asking God to damn him to hell, because they think he just isn’t good enough.
And yet, that’s exactly what we are seeing.
Of course that’s if we accept they meant any of what they said, claiming to support our cause at all, ever.
A man walks into a garage needing to cut off a small branch from one of his trees. For some reason his small axe was the tool he chose to use, and he looked for it. While doing so he picked up pruning sheers three times to find the axe. Not finding the axe, he decided to put the job off until another day. The pruning sheers would have been the perfect tool, but he couldn’t find the axe. For some reason, we have some folks who simply cannot recognize Trump is the right tool for the job at hand. They will put off accepting the truth of it for as long as they can.
a total mischaracterization of the criticism in this article.
<><>Another angle to explore: many of these women are minors impregnated by older men........a crime right there.
We need data on the number of underage women being aborted...that could lead to data on underage women being sexually molested by an abortionist.
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Call President Trump:
Comments: 202-456-1111
Switchboard: 202-456-1414
Contact Jeff Sessions
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530-0001
Comment Line: 202-353-1555
Switchboard: 202-514-2000
CONTACT CONGRESS:
Capitol Switchboard 1-866-220-0044
If people think Trump, or any other Republican, will shut down the government to defund Planned Parenthood, they delusional.
It’s up to Republicans in Congress to win that battle...and then Trump can sign whatever he’s given.
Terry Jeffrey a leftard?
He was a Buchanan top staffer in ‘96
And they are not required to report these obvious crimes but bring your kid to doctor for an ear infection and DHS shows up at your house because the kid had a bruise on his thigh...
Looks like he is starting where he can act...foreign affairs
Okay, then you admit there is criticism.
This is an issue of millions of dead pre-born humans.
The idea was that Trump had not forced Congress to defund Planned Parenthood. So once again, it’s another issue that is blamed squarely on Trump.
I mean who cares that Congress hasn’t acted? Why take them to task? Why it’s Trump that hasn’t forced them, so it’s his fault. B.S.
Let me explain something to you. Those that object to abortion view everyone who doesn’t work to stop it, to be damned to hell.
My criticism was dead on target.
Send Trump a bill to defund Planned Parenthood, and he will sign it.
Then he-of ALL people-should be in a position to know better than to write this bull chit! Does he expect Trump to just EO all the pp abbatoirs to be shut down?
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