Connect with us

Why The GOP’s Anti-Abortion Bill Is A Tax Hike On Gays And Lesbians

Published

on

Despite months and months of promises to focus on “jobs, jobs, jobs!,” the GOP has not put forth a single bill that will create a single job. Instead, this year they are wasting their entire time as the majority in the House, as are their counterparts, the Republican minority in the Senate, by focusing on repealing every Democratic law in sight and moving forward their conservative, anti-gay, anti-women, anti-environment, anti-middle class, anti-growth agenda. First, they voted to repeal health care reform. Now, they are fighting like mad to enact strong anti-abortion legislation that will be a tax hike for many American men and women, including many gay men and lesbians across America.

Abortion has been legal in America since Roe v. Wade, January 22, 1973. The infamous Hyde Amendment, enacted in 1976, bans the use of federal funds for abortion. The end. Except the GOP refuses to believe that, and now, not only are they trying to make abortions harder to get, like trying to force women to go through waiting periods, force women to see sonograms of their unborn fetuses, force women to listen to a doctor verbally describe the fetus’ body parts, they are now trying to enact legislation that would prohibit anyone from taking the usual deductions on their income taxes for medical expenses if their insurance policy covers abortions.

Let me repeat that.

Two of the GOP bills the House will vote on, and likely pass, the “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act,” and the “Protect Life Act” (and the Senate versions, which likely will pass as well) would take away tax deductions from all taxpayers if their medical plan covers abortions. Not if they have an abortion, or visit the doctor to discuss an abortion. This would apply to all men and women, gay or straight, who are in the “unfortunate” situation of having an insurance policy that covers abortion.

So, the GOP, who claims it wants smaller government, and lower taxes, wants a government big enough to, as Rachel Maddow often says, monitor the uterus of every woman in America. Furthermore, the GOP wants to repeal health care reform, making it harder for the American people to get health insurance (never mind affordable health insurance!) and increase taxes on the American people who are lucky enough to have insurance, because their insurance policy covers abortion services.

For example, a single man who works for a company, who can only get insurance through his employer, would lose all tax deductions for any medical expenses his insurance company doesn’t pay (co-pay, deductibles, transportation, etc.) because his plan covers the women and families in his company who might want the option of having an abortion. Even in the case of incest or rape.

Nick Baumann at Mother Jones says, “the law is a sweeping attack on tax benefits and deductions that affect abortion,” ad adds that it “would, for example, forbid self-employed people from deducting abortion costs as medical expenses and would outlaw the use of funds from tax-exempt Health Savings Accounts to pay for abortions. In effect, this would raise the taxes of nearly anyone who had an abortion or purchased insurance that covered abortion.”

Now, I don’t want to make this an LGBTQ issue, but surely, as I write about LGBTQ issues, you can understand my point of view, and recognize that gay men and lesbians rarely want abortions. So this GOP anti-abortion bill is in a sense an automatic tax hike on the entire LGBTQ community.

I mention this because as it is, we are unable to access the 1138 federal benefits that our heterosexual brothers and sisters are afforded merely by virtue of their birth. Heck, we’ve been subsidizing straight marriages since the dawn of time!

Most gay men and lesbians I know are pro-choice and actively against curtailing any civil right, including abortion. Not because it affects us directly or not, but because we believe in fighting for what’s right. And we work to elect strong pro-choice Democrats who will support civil rights for all, and not “allow hospitals to refuse to provide abortion care to women who will die without it.” (Unlike Republicans who are generally abortion foes and don’t care about women’s rights or civil rights.)

Oh. About that whole faux “jobs” focus? How’s this for conservative spin? “I think it’s [curtailing abortion rights] completely in line with the desire to focus on jobs, because we are in a financial crisis, so this ensures that federal taxpayer funds are going to things that are important to the American people and not to something like abortion,” says Kellie Fiedorek, a staff attorney for the antiabortion organization Americans United for Life (AUL), who wants to “defund Planned Parenthood.” because defunding Planned Parenthood will… increase healthcare costs for all Americans.

The GOP doesn’t care about jobs. They don’t care about the results of their actions. They only want to further their social agenda so they can fill up their campaign war chests. And if it means increasing the taxes on the people they care about least, the LGBTQ community? Heck, that’s just a bonus for them!

(image)

Related Topics:
Continue Reading
Click to comment
 
 

Enjoy this piece?

… then let us make a small request. The New Civil Rights Movement depends on readers like you to meet our ongoing expenses and continue producing quality progressive journalism. Three Silicon Valley giants consume 70 percent of all online advertising dollars, so we need your help to continue doing what we do.

NCRM is independent. You won’t find mainstream media bias here. From unflinching coverage of religious extremism, to spotlighting efforts to roll back our rights, NCRM continues to speak truth to power. America needs independent voices like NCRM to be sure no one is forgotten.

Every reader contribution, whatever the amount, makes a tremendous difference. Help ensure NCRM remains independent long into the future. Support progressive journalism with a one-time contribution to NCRM, or click here to become a subscriber. Thank you. Click here to donate by check.

COMMENTARY

‘I’m Broke’: One Day Before Shutdown and With No Plan McCarthy Says He Has ‘Nothing’ in His ‘Back Pocket’

Published

2 days ago

on

September 29, 2023

By

Just 30 hours before his own Republican conference likely will have succeeded in shutting down the federal government of the United States, Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy candidly admitted to reporters he’s run out of ideas.

Earlier Friday in an “embarrassing failure,” 21 House Republicans killed legislation from their own party, a short-term continuing resolution, that would have kept the federal government open.

Later on Friday afternoon, swarmed by reporters, McCarthy was asked if he was going to tell them what his plans are. He sarcastically replied, “No, I’m going to keep it all a secret.”

When pressed, he said he would “keep working, and make sure we solve this problem.”

“What’s in your back pocket, Speaker?” another reporter asked, pressing him for an answer.

“Nothing right now. I’m broke,” he admitted, apparently referring to options and ideas to avoid a shutdown.

READ MORE: ‘Bad News’ for Sidney Powell as First Trump Co-Defendant in Georgia RICO Case Takes Plea Deal: Legal Expert

But another reporter asked Speaker McCarthy the main question: Would he partner with House Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries to put the Senate’s bill before the House.

He refused to answer.

Just before 5 PM CNN’s Manu Raju reported on the ongoing House Republicans’ closed-door meeting with the Speaker, a meeting where the 21 Republicans who will likely be effectively responsible for the shutdown reportedly did not attend.

“McCarthy is telling [Republicans] now there aren’t many options to avoid a shutdown, according to sources in room. He says they can approve GOP’s stop-gap plan that failed, accept Senate plan, put a ‘clean’ stop-gap on floor to dare Democrats to block it — or shut down the government.”

READ MORE: Will McConnell and Senate Republicans Use Feinstein’s Passing to Grind Biden’s Judicial Confirmations to a Halt?

He adds, U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) largely responsible for the impending likely shutdown and the impending possible ouster of McCarthy said: “We will not pass a continuing resolution on terms that continue America’s decline.”

At midnight Saturday Republicans will likely have succeeded in furloughing 3.5 million million federal workers – two million of them service members in the U.S. Armed Forces – and countless contractors, while financially harming untold thousands of businesses that rely on income from all those workers to keep running – unless Speaker McCarthy puts a bipartisan continuing resolution approved by at least 75 U.S. Senators on the floor, legislation every House Democrat is likely to vote for.

Should he do so, many believe he will have also signed his own pink slip.

But whether or not the government shuts down, and whether or not McCarthy puts the Senate’s CR on the floor, according to The Washington Post the far right extremists in his party are already moving to oust him “as early as next week.”

The Biden campaign is making certain Americans realize the blame for the impending shutdown sits at McCarthy’s feet.

At 6:23 PM Friday evening, Punchbowl News’ Jake Sherman wrote on social media: “HOUSE REPUBLICANS HAVE NO PLAN TO KEEP GOVERNMENT OPEN.”

Watch the videos above or at this link.

Continue Reading

News

‘Bad News’ for Sidney Powell as First Trump Co-Defendant in Georgia RICO Case Takes Plea Deal: Legal Expert

Published

2 days ago

on

September 29, 2023

By

The first of 19 co-defendants in Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ RICO and election interference case against Donald Trump has pleaded guilty in what is being described as a “plea deal.”

“Under the terms of an agreement with Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’s office, Hall pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiracy to commit election fraud, conspiracy to commit computer theft, conspiracy to commit computer trespass, conspiracy to commit computer invasion of privacy, and conspiracy to defraud the state,” NBC News reports. “Under the terms of the deal, he’s being sentenced to five years probation.”

CNN previously reported “Hall, a bail bondsman and pro-Trump poll-watcher in Atlanta, spent hours inside a restricted area of the Coffee County elections office when voting systems were breached in January 2021. The breach was connected to efforts by pro-Trump conspiracy theorists to find voter fraud. Hall was captured on surveillance video at the office, on the day of the breach. He testified before the grand jury in Fulton County case and acknowledged that he gained access to a voting machine.”

READ MORE: Will McConnell and Senate Republicans Use Feinstein’s Passing to Grind Biden’s Judicial Confirmations to a Halt?

Former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance, a professor of law and frequent MSNBC contributor, says Hall “was in the thick of things with Sidney Powell on Jan 7 for the Coffee County scheme involving voting machines. If he’s cooperating, it’s a bad sign for her.”

Hall’s plea deal “spells bad news for, among others, Sidney Powell,” says former Dept. of Defense Special Counsel Ryan Goodman, an NYU Law professor of law. Goodman posted a graphic showing the overlap in charges against Hall and Powell, which he called “alleged joint actions.”

See the graphic above or at this link.

 

Continue Reading

News

Far-Right Republicans Kill GOP Bill to Keep Government Running in ‘Embarrassing Failure’ for McCarthy: Report

Published

2 days ago

on

September 29, 2023

By

With a shutdown less than 36 hours away, far-right Republicans in the House of Representatives Friday afternoon voted against their party’s own legislation to kept the federal government running. Democrats opposed the content of the bill and voted against it. Just 21 far-right members of the GOP conference were able to effectively force what appears to be an all but inevitable shutdown at midnight on Saturday.

“HARDLINE HOUSE RS take down stopgap funding bill. 21 GOP no votes. 232-198,” reported Punchbowl News’ Jake Sherman just before 2 PM Friday.

NBC News reported that a “band of conservative rebels on Friday revolted and blocked House Republicans’ short-term funding bill to keep the government open, delivering a political blow to Speaker Kevin McCarthy and likely cementing the chances of a painful government shutdown that is less than 48 hours away.”

READ MORE: Will McConnell and Senate Republicans Use Feinstein’s Passing to Grind Biden’s Judicial Confirmations to a Halt?

“Twenty-one rebels, led by Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., a conservative bomb-thrower and a top Donald Trump ally, voted Friday afternoon to scuttle the 30-day funding bill, known as a continuing resolution or CR, leaving Republicans without a game plan to avert a shutdown. The vote failed,” NBC added. “The embarrassing failure of the GOP measure once again highlights the dilemma for McCarthy as his hard-liners strongly oppose a short-term bill even if it includes conservative priorities. It leaves Congress on a path to a shutdown, with no apparent offramp to avoiding it — or to quickly reopen the government.”

A bipartisan group of at least 75 U.S. Senators has passed two bills this week that would keep the government running. Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy has refused to allow it to come to the floor for a vote.

 

 

 

Continue Reading

Trending

Copyright © 2020 AlterNet Media.