What Would You Do with $500 Million?
Many people have a clear idea of what they would do if they won the lottery. They can think of a number of worthy causes they would support, bills they have to pay, and investments for the future that would be prudent. If you were to ask 100 people, you would probably get 100 different plans on how to spend their fortune. But what if I presented you with an either/or, a binary question? And what if it was somebody else’s money? This is the question before Members of Congress right now. On August 3, the Senate failed to reach cloture on a bill that would redirect Planned Parenthood’s $500 million in taxpayer funding to Community Health Centers. Similar legislation has been introduced in the House, and I support it as a co-sponsor. So the question before Congress was and remains, which of these two would you rather fund? Forty-seven Senators, including all but two Democrats, preferred Planned Parenthood, the country’s largest abortion provider. It’s hard to believe that someone could hold such an extremist opinion. Perhaps they need a refresher course on Community Health Centers, and on Planned Parenthood. Community Health Centers (CHCs) provide primary care, dental, behavioral, pharmacy and a variety of support services to America’s most vulnerable populations. For example, CHCs do mammograms; Planned Parenthood doesn’t. Planned Parenthood just refers women elsewhere for those. Currently, more than 1,200 locally-controlled Health Centers operate in 9,000 urban and rural underserved communities. Since 2002, Health Centers have expanded health care access from 11 million patients to 22 million patients in communities nationwide. These efforts have brought enormous economic value and improved health to the entire system by ensuring patients in these communities have access to a health care home. By specializing in providing primary and preventive health care to their patients, Health Centers produce $24 billion in annual health systems savings. I am a Member of the Congressional Community Health Centers Caucus, and I believe in the effective and efficient work they do for our poor and underserved brothers and sisters. Moreover, Medicaid pays for contraception, as does the President’s requirement that employers pay for their employees’ contraception. Planned Parenthood, in this respect, has largely been replaced by the same big-government liberalism that created it. Planned Parenthood aborts over 300,000 American children every year, one every 96 seconds. For comparison’s sake, bear in mind that the population of Lancaster city is about 60,000. Planned Parenthood receives over a billion dollars in total revenue each year. Their CEO, Cecile Richards, is the daughter of Texas Governor Ann Richards; she lives on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, where the average household net worth is $1.2 million, and makes $400,000 per year, as much as the President of the United States. She is a one-percenter. But Planned Parenthood still gets to enjoy non-profit tax status. Planned Parenthood also receives one million dollars per day from American taxpayers, even though half of the country identifies as pro-life, and even though millions of Americans are struggling in this economy. Money is fungible, and giving abortionists money frees up other resources to be used for abortion. Planned Parenthood spends millions each election year on pro-abortion politicians. Five videos in recent weeks have shown Planned Parenthood senior staff discussing the dismemberment of unborn children for the sake of harvesting and selling their organs. Several of these videos show Planned Parenthood staff discussing and showing the corpses of their victims as so much chattel to be sold. The public has been rightly outraged. For us to have a tolerant, civil discourse in this country, we need mutual respect. And it is not respectful to force pro-lifers to give their money to abortionists. This is just part of a larger pattern of incivility and intolerance from the defenders of big government. There are many better things that we could do with one million dollars per day. For example, the National Institutes of Health spend, on annual scientific research:
- $290 million for brain cancer research;
- $279 million for tuberculosis research;
- $397 million on research into depression;
- $255 million on prostate cancer research; and
- $252 million on lymphoma research.
Imagine if we spent Planned Parenthood’s funding to save lives, rather than take them. These are just some examples of the countless better causes than the largest abortion provider on earth. What would you do with $500 million taxpayer dollars?
