The GOP has officially caved on the debt ceiling. Now, the Left is forcing Republicans to protect Planned Parenthood's Federal funding!
Last week, I told you that the Trump administration had officially finalized the President's "Protect Life" order and cut Planned Parenthood off from 280 million in Title X family planning funding.
We won. President Trump campaigned on a promise to defund Planned Parenthood, followed through and implemented the order, and then the 9th Circuit Court ruled that the new regulation could go into effect.
For the first time ever, we were on the brink of forcing Planned Parenthood and hundreds of abortion clinics in the country out of business. This was the biggest pro-life victory since Roe v. Wade.
But we are now learning that Obama-holdovers in the Department of Health and Human Services have delayed the regulation from going into effect. A week after Planned Parenthood was notified that their funds were being cut off, they received another letter from HHS letting them know that regulators "do not intend to bring enforcement actions" against abortion clinics that are out of compliance.
Instead, Planned Parenthood will have until September 16 to formally separate their abortion and healthcare parts of their business model. But even that isn't technically true. But the clarification also creates a pathway for Planned Parenthood to receive Federal funding and continue performing abortions until next March...
The September 16 date is important, though. That is just two weeks before the end of the government's Fiscal Year ends. What that means is that the brunt of this new regulation will be governed by next year's Health and Human Services Appropriations Act.
And of course, the bill right now includes an amendment to block Trump from enforcing this "Protect Life" rule!
The timing means that if this bill passes as-is, Planned Parenthood will only lose their funding for 14 days... After that, Planned Parenthood would regain its access to 400 million in Title X funds. The specific amendment reads,
"the Secretary shall carry out section 1001 of the PHS Act solely in accordance with any regulations or other conditions or instructions established by the Secretary pursuant to the authority under section 1006 of the PHS Act that applied as of January 18, 2017, to grants and contracts awarded under section 1001 of the PHS Act..." (emphasis added)
As we have covered before, that means that Trump would have to disburse these Family Planning grants according to the Obama administration's regulations; the rules that were in place two days before Trump's inauguration.
Planned Parenthood has spent millions on lobbyists to make sure that this one sentence got added to the spending bill. Now, it is in it...
Last night, we learned that the GOP leadership had caved to the Left's debt ceiling demands. Instead of forcing spending cuts -- which Republicans have promised for decades -- Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy agreed to give the Left an additional 320 billion in the budget.
There was no agreement, however, on the appropriations process. The media doesn't ever explain this, but there is a difference between the budget and appropriations. The budget details how much funding will go to each government department/agency and the appropriations process outlines what the government can and cannot spend that funding on.
Both parties agreed on a budget yesterday, but not an appropriations package. Democrats are celebrating. They held the Debt Ceiling hostage and the GOP blinked. Now, they are doubling down to force Republicans to cave and restore all of Planned Parenthood's funding!
We were over-the-moon last week when word broke that the "Protect Life rule" would be immediately going into effect. But Obama holdovers within HHS have now delayed the new regulations. They want to give Congressional Democrats more time to get Planned Parenthood's funding restored.
Democrats have been obstructing all of Trump's nominations in the Senate. The result is that 33% of political positions inside of the Department of Health and Human Services remain unfilled. Obama administration officials are still on the job... In just a week, they have saved Planned Parenthood from bankruptcy and opened the door for Leftists in Congress to undo Trump's regulation.
The Left isn't backing down. The GOP caved on the debt ceiling, now Democrats want to force Establishment Republicans to cave on Planned Parenthood's funding.
It is up to YOU to stop them!
In just the span of a week, we have gone from victory to the brink of defeat. Republican Senators Susan Collins (ME) and Lisa Murkowski (AK) are now on record saying that they oppose Trump's "Protect Life" executive order. Since they sit on the Senate Appropriations Committee, where Republicans hold just a one-vote majority, they have the power to vote with Democrats to restore and even increase Planned Parenthood's funding. If they vote with the Left, then the provision will make it into the Senate version of the bill too...
Here's the bad news: Yesterday's debt ceiling announcement has kicked the appropriations process into overdrive. Mitch McConnell says that he wants the Senate to vote on these spending bills by the end of next week!
This is it. There is no time to waste. The fight has now reached your doorstep.
If you want to cut off Planned Parenthood's funding for good and stop Democrats from forcing Obama's abortion regulations onto the country, you MUST fight back right now and block this amendment!
Fight for life,
Max McGuire
Advocacy Director
Conservative Daily
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