Planned Parenthood will once again remain safe under the new spending bill.
Planned Parenthood will continue to receive hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars in the new spending agreement, despite Republican pledges to defund the nation’s largest abortion provider.
Congressional Republicans failed to make good on their campaign promises to end taxpayer funding of Planned Parenthood in their latest rounds of contentious negotiations with Democrats, which largely focused on military spending and immigration. Despite controlling both houses of Congress and House Speaker Paul Ryan’s (R., Wis.) 2017 pledge to defund the organization, Republicans were unable to implement plans to redirect taxpayer dollars to local community health centers that do not provide abortions.
Taxpayers sent $543.7 million to Planned Parenthood last year, down from $554.6 million in 2016, and government funding accounted for about 40 percent of its $1.46 billion revenue stream, according to its annual report. Private contributions to the group have skyrocketed in recent years as it collected $532.7 million in donations in 2017, an $87 million increase from the year before.
This is beyond disastrous. The vast majority of Republicans ran on the defunding of Planned Parenthood and by not doing it they only hurt their own voters. Even with it staying funded the supporters of Planned Parenthood will still blame the Republicans for wanting to defund it. Meanwhile, the Republicans base will continue to be angered by the fact that they can’t get this done.
