In case you missed it, Grover Norquist and Marjorie Dannenfelser wrote here earlier this week:
If American workers are to have any chance of cutting this mountain down to size without turning over all their earnings in taxes, dozens of federal programs, and even a department or two, must be on the table. No program can be off limits. It’s not just the money, of course, it’s the scope of government that must be rethought. Right now, no corner of American life, from the kind of light bulbs we can buy to the toilets in our houses, has been left alone by our overreaching national government.
For these reasons and more, Planned Parenthood should be at the head of the cut list. To begin with, as Chuck Donovan at the Heritage Foundation has pointed out, Planned Parenthood is awash in net income. From 2002 to 2007, the national organization and its affiliates took in $388 million more than they spent on programs and services. No doubt the group lost some of that money in the same kinds of investments that disappointed the rest of us, but that has not prevented it from paying its president more than $337,000 in annual salary and tens of thousands more in benefits and allowances.
Across the country, courageous Republican governors are doing the right thing and taking on tough budget fights. They are asking government workers to pay more for their pensions and health-insurance plans. They are laying off public employees, reducing the number of patrol cars and fire crews, and cutting basic services. Leaving Planned Parenthood at the federal trough, under lobbying pressures that are a fraction of what the Left has thrown at conservative state legislators, sends up a white flag of surrender that will signal the beginning of a fiscal rout.
Planned Parenthood is a prime cut for reasons that should matter to conservatives on other grounds. Over the past few years, as the investigative group Live Action has documented, Planned Parenthood has shown it will accept donations offered up on racist grounds. They routinely fail to obey the law on statutory rape reporting. And now we know that their clinics across the country will condone and cooperate with child sex trafficking. We ask again: If a sparkling new Tea Party Congress won’t cut off this bunch, what will it cut?
Mike Pence’s battle is not just another social-issue skirmish. It’s a test of economic and budgetary seriousness. March 18 and a second continuing resolution are looming. Planned Parenthood must be privatized. Economic and social conservatives agree — this one is non-negotiable.





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