Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
Back in early December, POLITICO Tiger Beat on The Potomac reported that "The National Republican Congressional Committee wants to make sure there are no Todd Akin-style gaffes next year, so it’s meeting with top aides of sitting Republicans to teach them what to say — or not to say — on the trail, especially when their boss is running against a woman." GOP men tutored in running against women.
The idea was so comical that Gary Trudeau featured it in his Doonesbury comic strip in December.
Apparenlty the NRCC forgot to school their male members of Congress that they should also not say stupid things in open committee hearings with C-Span cameras rolling.
You can't make this shit up. Congressman’s New Jobs Plan: Deny Women Access To Abortion So They Can Make More Babies:
During a debate over an anti-abortion bill currently advancing in Congress, Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) suggested that Republicans support restricting access to abortion because it will ultimately benefit the economy if women have more children. Goodlatte noted that carrying pregnancies to term “very much promotes job creation.”
Goodlatte made the comments while presiding over a committee mark-up of the “No Taxpayer Funding For Abortion Act,” or HR 7, on Wednesday afternoon. That legislation would dramatically restrict women’s access to affordable abortion care by imposing restrictions on insurance coverage and tax credits for the procedure. Goodlatte, who chairs the House Judiciary Committee, advanced HR 7 by scheduling it for a full committee mark-up on Wednesday.
Explaining his support for the measure, Goodlatte [said]:
“I would suggest that it is very much the case that those of us in the majority support this legislation because it is the morally right thing to do but it is also very very true that having a growing population and having new children brought into the world is not harmful to job creation,” he said. “It very much promotes job creation for all the care and services and so on that need to be provided by a lot of people to raise children.”
Watch it:
In reality, denying women autonomy over their reproductive lives is not a wise economic policy. Without access to affordable family planning services, women are less likely to be able to finish their education, advance their career, or achieve financial independence. The low-income women who end up carrying unwanted pregnancies to term end up slipping deeper into poverty and struggling with long-term mental health issues. That ends up impacting the social safety net, putting a greater strain on the Medicaid program. In fact, the Guttmacher Institute estimates that every $1 invested into family planning programs yields more than $5 in savings for the U.S. government.
The Democratic members of the House Judiciary Committee have expressed fierce opposition to HR 7. On Tuesday, the female committee members wrote a letter to Goodlatte criticizing him for deciding to advance the bill.
But wait, there's more! House Republicans Are Pushing A Bill That Would Force The IRS To Audit Rape Victims:
In addition to preventing low-income women from using their Medicaid coverage to access abortion, the “No Taxpayer Funding For Abortion Act,” or HR 7, could also have dramatic implications for the tax code and the private insurance market. One of its most controversial provisions could actually require the Internal Revenue Service to conduct audits of rape victims.
Why? Because HR 7 eliminates medical-expense deductions for abortion care, essentially raising taxes on the women who opt to have an abortion. Like many abortion restrictions, this provision includes an exemption for victims of rape and incest, as well as women who encounter life-threatening complications from their pregnancies. But in order to enforce those exceptions, the IRS would have to verify that the women who are claiming a medical-expense deduction for an abortion fall into one of those three categories, to ensure they’re not committing tax fraud.
Essentially, that would empower the government agency to have the final say over what “counts” as a sexual assault or a life-threatening situation. And that, in turn, would force victims to prove their case.
“Imagine having to recount a sexual assault — a horrifyingly painful, personal experience — to a tax collector,” NARAL Pro-Choice America says in an action alert to its members to encourage them to mobilize against HR 7. “An anti-choice bill in Congress would do just that. It could force sexual assault survivors who access abortion care to prove the assault occurred.”
So the IRS auditing 501(c)(4) "dark money" political action organizations is a national scandal to the GOP which FAUX News whines about incessantly, but forcing rape victims to be audited by the IRS to justify a medical-expense deduction for an abortion is just okey-dokey with them. Yeah, that would be the genuine IRS scandal.
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