Obama’s Budget, Abortion and Bullying
Religion & Liberty Online

Obama’s Budget, Abortion and Bullying

Obama’s new budget is in. The usual political wrangling is taking place, but there are some undeniable facts about the budget. Taxes are going up (is anyone surprised?), but some of those taxes are “sneaky” ones on senior citizens designed to fund things other than their health. In all, the president’s budget will raise taxes by $1.1 trillion dollars. (That number shouldn’t shock you: President Obama is the first president to ever spend $4 trillion in one year.)

One area of great concern in this budget is abortion funding. Despite the fact that a solid majority of Americans don’t want to pay for other people’s abortions, Obama’s new budget calls for $30 million more to do just that. In 2011, $542 million taxpayer dollars went to Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest provider of abortions. Planned Parenthood is a non-profit organization, yet reported last year revenues in excess of $87 million, and assets over $1 billion.

In addition to heavily funding Planned Parenthood, the budget will fund abortions for Peace Corps volunteers, prison inmates, immigration detainees, and American military personnel.

On the Fund Abortion Now website, there is this:

President Obama unveiled his 2014 budget this morning. We commend the President for striking restrictions on D.C. funding of abortion for low-income women in his budget and for moving to lessen some of the restrictions on coverage for women in the Peace Corps. However, we join many other groups in the women’s health and rights community in our disappointment that he did not take a critical step toward lifting the current Medicaid coverage ban. President Obama could have taken this historic opportunity at the dawn of his second term in office to present a clean budget to Congress; he did not.

Every year politicians use the budget process to deny abortion coverage for women enrolled in any federal insurance plan. But it doesn’t have to be this way. A budget is a moral document: it reflects our values. [Emphasis added.]

Again, there are undeniable truths about this budget. It increases the amount of taxpayer money that will fund abortions, a move which most Americans disapprove of. It funds this is some “sneaky” ways. It increases the groups of women receiving abortion coverage as “health care”. And most undeniably, this budge makes a moral statement: President Obama doesn’t care that you don’t want your money to kill babies. He’s going to do it anyway. Just like the kid who steals the lunch money of the weaker classmate in the school bathroom, Obama’s going to take your taxpayer dollars and use it just the way he wants. That’s bullying.

Elise Hilton

Communications Specialist at Acton Institute. M.A. in World Religions.