Defunding Planned Parenthood makes fiscal sense

Grover Norquist and Marjorie Dannenfelser write:

When the House of Representatives voted two weeks ago to end federal grants and contracts for Planned Parenthood, it was doing more than merely expressing congressional revulsion against a notorious and scandal-plagued organization. It was deciding that American taxpayers should not be saddled with even more outrageous debt to fund an extraordinarily wealthy nonprofit.

As a consequence, what is now at stake in the funding fight over the nation's largest abortion business is not just a dispute over social policy. It's not even just a dispute over an organization that has been a sacred cow for decades. It's about a whole herd of sacred cows. In fact, it's about the whole farm: If a new Congress elected on a pledge to halt skyrocketing spending and deficits can't cut the gold-plated panjandrums at Planned Parenthood, it can't cut anything. ...

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. ...

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 [to defund Planned Parenthood] 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.