The Republican attacks on our health care apparently have no limits. The Republican Party is driven by a powerful, extremist obsession with turning back the clock on women's health services and undermining the health security of America's families. This was in evidence during last week's budget talks when Republicans were willing to shut down the government over funding for preventive care at Planned Parenthood health centers.
Last week's big fight in Congress was about continuing funding for the rest of the 2011 fiscal year. In many ways the Republicans hijacked the debate and muddied the waters with their focus on social issues and their attacks on women. Rather than fulfilling their campaign promises to create jobs and revive the economy, the GOP is bound and determined to take away access to basic health care for millions of women, along with seniors, children, people with disabilities, middle class families and every other one of us.
Thankfully, the President and the Senate - with the support of House Democrats - stood up to the attacks on Planned Parenthood and the new health care law, the Affordable Care Act. But more attempts to take away our health security are coming. The Republicans also want to eliminate Medicaid and Medicare as we know it, and take away guaranteed health care benefits for seniors, children and people with disabilities.
Last week's agreement did not let the Republicans eliminate breast exams, cancer screenings, and birth control that millions of American women count on. But it did allow a new standalone vote later this week on a measure known as the Pence amendment which would defund Planned Parenthood. There will also be a separate vote on whether to defund the ACA.
On the campaign trail last year, the Republicans made a lot of promises about putting Americans back to work and reducing the deficit. If the Republicans truly cared about creating jobs and addressing the deficit, they'd ask millionaires and corporations to pay their fair share in taxes. What happened to shared sacrifice and the idea that everyone should pitch in? Why are we letting millionaires and big corporations off the hook and balancing the budget on the backs of seniors and middle class families? These are questions that the Democrats should answer with overwhelming political force.
The Republicans are mounting a frontal assault on the middle class. It's not about deficit reduction. It's not about the budget. It's about remaking our society so millionaires and corporations get even richer while the rest of us are left with crumbs.
We can't preserve and expand the middle class if people don't have affordable health care they can count on. These days, people have enough to worry about with high unemployment, rising gas and food prices and mortgages that are under water because of the Wall Street-led housing crash.
Access to quality, affordable health care is about economic security and whether people can raise their families and retire with dignity as their parents did. Instead of creating jobs and growing the economy, the Republicans are attacking the middle class and undermining the American Dream. We often say that big budget and issue fights are the most important ever, the biggest in generations - that the outcome of battles we're fighting will affect life in America for decades to come. This time, that's unmistakably true.
Follow Ethan Rome on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@HCAN
Stand with Barbara Boxer and the Democratic women of the Senate now, and urge the Senate to oppose all attempts to limit women's access to health care today, tomorrow, and in the future."
http://action.barbaraboxer.com/page/s/Stop_the_anti-woman_agenda?source=04132011em_antiwomanagenda
http://www.denverpost.com/nationworld/ci_17831739?source=rss
The political theater that has been playing to packed houses in Washington this week would no doubt have Shakespeare posing the question, “Is this comedy or tragedy?” So bizarre have been the staged theatrics of the Republican and Democratic parties over continuing resolutions, the 2011 budget, the debt ceiling, and long-term debt reduction, it is hard to tell the difference between fiscal responsibility, legislative deniability, and psychosocial laughability.
What is it going to take to get our elected officials to actually govern? The Republicans can’t get it done because they are in the majority here and the minority there and they are, after all, chronically schizophrenic by nature. And the Democrats can’t get it done because they are in control of the White House and with it the responsibility for making the world safe for democracy while trying to figure out a way to extract our troops from three murky wars.
Boy! Though I would love to offer some recommendations on what the Legislature and the Executive should do, I can’t help wondering if the American people are more concerned with what happens next on the Real Housewives of New Jersey while our government seems bent on bringing back The Twilight Zone.
You may say that republicans want tax breaks for the wealthy, but then you must agree that democrats what to tax the poorer to pay the wealthier.
The repulicans are not seeking tax breaks for "Millionaires". The number on the table is $250,000.00.
The republicans targeting out of control spending and the money being spent is the midlle class' tax dollars. It is clear that the republicans are looking out for the small guy and the middle class, while the democrats want to take as much as they can from the middle class and spend their monay and so that they can keep doing exactly that, they say they need to raise taxes on the rich.
The republicans are trying to save All of us from a ravenous monster that is over spending the money of the poor. We have a spending problem, noit an undertaxation problem.
If you make more, pay mor in taxes, that's fair. But fairness in the tax code is not the same as fairness through taxation.
Cutting spending is not targeting the middle class, it is saving its future.
That was hilarious!
your stolid defense of the republican agenda is sad, since they are totally joking about deficit reduction and actually waging the same old class war they're been waging for 30 years.
all our insanity threatening a government shutdown over what, .08% of our budget? laughable.
i can't wait for the next ultimatum from the bully party. i for one would like to see these charlatans follow through on their threat to shut it down. but they won't. know why? bullys are really cowards. we all know that.
PP has increased the number of abortions it has performed significantly year after year. This while other services they have provided have reduced and abortions across the country as a whole have declined. The two numbers that go up, abortions provided by PP and money from the federal government received by PP. We even had a whistle blower come forth that claimed that upper management was pushing local managers to increase their abortions. That they were doing that because abortion is their most profitable "service". This is backed up by data released by PP that shows that they have had a 20% increase in abortion in the last two years while also having an 80% decrease in adoption referrals. That gets overlooked by the left who usually likes to jump on groups and their "profit" motive because why?
All of that aside even if PP fulfills the mission that they claim to fill it is still wrong to borrow from future generations to pay for that mission. They will have people they need to help and their own problems they need to address. The left didn't argue that other things should be cut instead because their politicians don't want to cut spending. Which leads to other questions.
A rep from the Susan B Anthony group was on, stating the main reason they are targeting PP has to do with the highly edited sting videos showing that a couple of PP employees may have not reported underage trafficking.
It is possible that a small number of employees did not do what should have been done. Possible. But where in ANY organization, private or public, is there not some failure or some wrongdoing?
The infamous new gov. of Florida ran a company that had to pay the largest ever fine for medicare fraud. And instead of being in jail, he's elected to gov. Go figure.
The only way Repubs want to let monies go to fund reproductive health services is sending them to faith based groups.
Government programs aren't compassionate. The people who believe in big government programs donate little of their own resources to worthy causes. They want the government to handle "those people" so they don't have to deal with them.
Because someone does not share YOUR priorities does not mean they lack compassion - just that they have other priorities for spending the tax money we are borrowing.
There is a HUD program that helps people in mortgage trouble to stay in their homes and avoid the scam artisits once again advertising on TV around the clock that they can repair your mortgage for a fee.
The Dems allowed that program to be zeroed out in this latest budget deal last week.
Until the Dems stop living in a vacuum and come out with a "Ryan plan" of their own, the GOP will continue to dismantle government that is important to those mentioned in this article.
Until the Dems can make the case as effectively FOR government as the GOP makes it AGAINST government, then we will continue to (sorry for the hack cliche) keep re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
The number of homeowner receiving permanent reductions in their mortgage payments through the federal government’s efforts appears low compared with the number of homeowners that have participated in HAMP. According to the Treasury and HUD, approximately 1.3 million homeowners had trial modifications of their mortgage payments between April 2009 and the end of June 2010. This meant that just under three percent of homeowners who qualified for a trial modification of a mortgage had their mortgages permanently reduced....'
And this is the problem with any govt program... even if you try to cancel a failed program, the wailing and gnashing of teeth will bemoan the 'poor' who will be hurt.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/treasury-eyes-single-contact-in-hamp-program-2011-04-12
But conservatives would always rather see the baby thrown out with the bath water.
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2011/02/how-is-the-hamp-loan-modification-program-doing/
Interesting that the bigger the bank, the worse it is doing.
Gotta love those captains of industry.
PASS IT ON.
And of course Granny isn't safe, the Teapubs are trying to cut her medicare funds so her doctor won't see her, ratchet up her Big Pharma drug costs so she can't get her drugs, and cutting food aid, so she won't even be able to afford food. You won't even need a "panel" to kill Granny.
People acting outrage that the GOP are not more considerate make about as much sense as people who get upset by a crocodile eating the nice little furry critter that walks his way. This is what crocodiles do. Being greedy cold hearted self righteous, self absorbed and cruel is what GOPers do. Getting all worked up about it is pointless.
They lie about abortion all the time, Kyl just got caught admitting to it.