Posted on 04/05/2011 10:55:07 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Boehner could probably get away with dropping the PP rider from the House budget bill if Reid was prepared to agree to a number close to $61 billion in cuts. But to meet roughly only halfway, at or around $33 billion, and still drop some of the red meat like defunding PP that the base craved? He’s burning the candle of grassroots credibility at both ends. Risky business.
Forty-one senators have pledged to filibuster any bipartisan spending bill that includes an amendment to strip federal funding from Planned Parenthood, threatening an impasse with House conservatives.
The group, led by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), includes thirty-nine Democratic senators and two Independents, Sens. Joe Lieberman (Conn.) and Bernie Sanders (Vt.)…
The group outlined their opposition in a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and GOP leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.), asking Reid and McConnell to “stand with us against extreme proposals by some members of the House to eliminate support for women’s health and family planning programs and providers that service millions of women and families.”…
Reid has already declared the Planned Parenthood rider would not be part of a final deal with the House on 2011 spending levels.
Remember, Brown, Collins, and Murkowski also oppose defunding Planned Parenthood and there are surely other Democrats who didn’t sign Boxer’s letter who’ll vote with her if it comes to that. So realistically, there’s no way this is getting through the Senate. And needless to say, if he and Reid can agree on a budget in all major particulars, Boehner isn’t going to endanger that by threatening to force a government shutdown over an issue as narrow and hot button as abortion. So he has four options here. (1) Trade one red meat provision for another. If the GOP drops the Planned Parenthood rider, Democrats agree to defund NPR. Easy peasy! (2) Drop all the red meat stuff in exchange for deeper cuts. Boehner’s already insisting that $33 billion isn’t enough, so maybe that’s already in the works. (3) Split the riders off from the main budget bill, pass them separately in the House, and have Reid give them a separate up-or-down vote in the Senate. That would be Boehner’s way of showing the base that he’s bringing their concerns to the floor, but since the only leverage he has in getting them passed is leaving them attached to the main budget bill, splitting them off would be tantamount to dropping them altogether. (4) Start frantically downplaying the significance of this year’s budget, which is after all small potatoes, and soothe the base with reassurances about how epic Paul Ryan’s 2012 budget is going to be. Maybe have Ryan hold a presser at which he repeats, over and over in dulcet tones, “Four trillion. Four trillion. Four trillion…”
Exit question: Failure to defund PP = nifty fundraising tool for the NRSC among social conservatives next year?
Go ahead DemonRats, make my day!
Mike
Doesn’t that play into the Republicans hands though? The Democrats have already proven incompetent by not passing the budget last year when they were in charge of everything and now supporting PP over the shutdown of the government? When the majority of Americans don’t want PP funded with Federal monies?
That aside, who didn’t see something this stupid coming from the Senate democrats?
Excellent! Force the Democrats to defend taxpayer funding for the largest abortion provider in the nation. I can’t imagine Republicans not coming out ahead on that one.
Of all the things not listed in the Constitution to support with government funds, the wanton killing of human children might be the most flagrant misuse and outrage of the modern era.
Time for us to quit our pretense that we are less savage than the head-chopping, child molesting ayatollahs on the other side of the world.
Let them shut down the government over government funding of abortion!!! PLEASE. Make my day!
Killing babies and anal sodomy - sacraments of the left.
let them fillibuster. and make sure that people know that they’d shut down the government to have government funded infanticide.
He is not our friend or a friend to children by this act.
It sounds like the baby killers really want their blood money.
Notice that it’s not just abortion that they promote, but TAXPAYER FUNDED abortion. There was also a clause in 0bamacare stating that at least $1 of any insurance premium must go to providing abortion services.
Do you wonder why? Why just $1?
The answer is that they want to MAKE SURE that EVERYONE is complicit with their infanticidal programs.
Yes, it is pure evil, and the left works for Satan.
It’s gonna suck to be them on Judgement Day................
I think this is a win-win for the Republicans. Let the Dems filibuster, and make sure it’s on TV for the whole country to see. Or drop it in exchange for the $61B in cuts.
How can the DNC run their campaigns w/o abortion factory cash?
Pray for America
They want to have government fund the killing of the unborn; that carries a terrible theological penalty. And they don’t care.
Boxer is an evil moronic midget.
I hope they take a page from their fellow Texans and Wisconsin comrades, and hole-up in a hotel across the border... in Havana or Pyongyang or similar.
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