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Posted on 09/01/2015 7:58:07 AM PDT by Jane Long
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell undercut threats by fellow Republicans to hold the budget process hostage in an effort to defund Planned Parenthood, saying conservatives do not have enough support in Congress to cut off the group now under fire from abortion opponents.
Instead, the Senate’s top Republican said he is focused on funding the federal government when U.S. lawmakers return next week and will work with President Barack Obama to avert a shutdown, which last paralyzed the government in 2013.
On the possibility of tying measures that kill funding of the women’s health group to federal spending bills, McConnell told Kentucky station WYMT: “We just don’t have the votes to get the outcome that we’d like.”
“The president has made it very clear he’s not going to sign any bill that includes defunding of Planned Parenthood, so that’s another issue that awaits a new president hopefully with a different point of view about Planned Parenthood.”
Some Republicans have threatened to push for cutting off the group’s federal support, perhaps tying that demand to several must-pass tax-and-spending measures set to come before Congress after its long August vacation.
Lawmakers will return to Washington on Sept. 8. Left unresolved, failure to pass those bills could push them to the brink of shutdown by as early as Oct. 1
Congress must pass legislation to fund the U.S. government before the current fiscal year ends Sept. 30, although it could pass a stopgap measure to keep the government operating at current spending levels.
While Republicans control both chambers of Congress, they must pass legislation that Obama, a Democrat, will sign in to law.
Planned Parenthood has been under fire since an anti-abortion group, the Center for Medical Progress, recently started posting secretly recorded videos online. The center says the tapes show Planned Parenthood engaged in illegal sales of fetal tissue. Planned Parenthood counters that the videos were distorted and that it did nothing wrong.
The center Tuesday released a related video and, in a letter dated Aug. 31 to McConnell and other top lawmakers, urged Congress to continue investigating the group.
Republicans are pushing for increased military spending for fiscal year 2016, while Democrats want increased domestic spending. [ID:nL1N11118B]
“Our Democratic friends want to spend more on everything, we’d like to spend more on defense,” McConnell said on WYMT. And so there will be a kind of grand negotiation here in the fall.”
They don’t have the votes to defund Obamacare either but they still took that show-vote over and over again.
Get them on the record!
Yertle the infanticidal turdle.
This is your GOPe leadership. This is your GOPe that, if under Jeb Bush, would completely fund PP, legalize illegals - eventually giving them citizenship, NOT do a damn thing to stop more illegals invading us, and add more liberal justices to the Supreme Court.
Our Congress and GOPe Party is infested with the most aggressive cancer there is.
The old sob won’t even fight. He won’t even try to put a bill on the president’s desk. He won’t get the democrats on record.
Welcome to the GOP that I love to hate.
And they wonder why I think Trump is a better deal than this. I know these cowards won’t fight. I don’t need any more proof. I’ve got years and years of proof already. But here’s another piece to add to the very long list.
There is a big part of the problem. Dip stick McConnell thinks the rats are friends. They are enemies, not friends. He is a TOTAL idiot.
Not a chance to stop these communists Democrat in the Senate. America hasn’t a chance unless we take the Presidency. And McConnell needs to go.
Yet another conservative issue for which the GOPe just “doesn’t have the votes”. Tell me again, GOP, why I have to vote for you, and what you’ll do for conservatives if we give you the majority. Because so far the ‘rats couldn’t do a better job of advancing their agenda than you’re doing.
Yes, this is the GOPe on full display.
Yebbie is definitely a part of that cabal.
His grandpappy was one of the early progressives to infiltrate the Republican party and spread this aggressive disease.
Shocking! Effing surrender monkeys.
This is the worst thing on earth. Nothing before or since compares, but we can't even cut off federal funding to Dr. Frankenstein's lab because apparently the Ghouls and the Dead and the Damned votes DO matter. >:(
And they wonder why I think Trump is a better deal than this. I know these cowards won’t fight. I don’t need any more proof. I’ve got years and years of proof already. But here’s another piece to add to the very long list.
Amen. I posted a similar comment, upthread. Trump is the best alternative we have, with support and numbers - at rallies and in polls, to take on this behemoth monster. Trump/Cruz...to end the GOPe.
Agree.
But why can't they just NOT include funding in the budget/allocation?
If the allocation isn't there, there is no funding.
What am I missing?
That is extremely interesting, and it’s compelling in that a ‘rat is speaking his honest opinion to another ‘rat. Everything he said appears to be proven in the actions of Boehner. Of course it didn’t take much insight to see that he (or the rest of the top players in the GOP) don’t have any commitment to principle.
LORD, rescue the unborn from abortion.
Forgive us for our complacency. We say,
“We knew nothing about this,” but You
who weighs the heart knows everything.
Proverbs 24:11-12
Amen.
They’re worse than cowardly-that would mean that at least they care about the issues, but are afraid to act on them-but the real truth of the matter is that they don’t even care, that’s not why they’re there, or why they wanted the majority. They wanted the lobbyists to have to wine and dine them more instead of the’rats, they wanted to be the ones who had to be courted by the big money special interests. The Chamber of Commerce, for instance, owns them on the illegal immigrant/amnesty issue.
Thanks. Keep posting those reminders.
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