Today, Americans for Tax Reform, joined by twenty-eight fiscally conservative groups, released a letter urging lawmakers to defund Planned Parenthood. After years of explosive spending growth, Congress should immediately eliminate funneling wasteful and unnecessary subsidies to controversial enterprises. Planned Parenthood, which took in over $388 million in profits from 2002 to 2007, should not be allowed to continue to reap the munificence of the public coffers. Like other services best undertaken by the private sector, Planned Parenthood should be required to withstand fair market competition, instead of subsisting on unnecessary taxpayer support. From the letter:
“When the House of Representatives voted two weeks ago to end federal grants and contracts for Planned Parenthood, it did so alongside eliminations for other pet projects, such as military contracts, signaling the sanctimony preserved for institutions revered on both sides of the aisle is coming to a close. It was decided that American taxpayers should not be on the hook for unnecessary and controversial funding at a time when they simply cannot live with any more spending.
The federal budget is out of control, and if we cannot at least eliminate funding for an enormously wealthy, controversial nonprofit like Planned Parenthood, our movement to significantly cut the federal budget to sustainable levels with be dead in the water.
American Taxpayers cannot afford to be unwitting benefactors of endless bailouts, and the Pence Amendment is not just another social-issue skirmish. It is a test of economic and budgetary seriousness. Planned Parenthood must be privatized.”
Signatories to the letter include: Americans for Tax Reform, the Independence Institute, American Civil Rights Union, the Center for Fiscal Accountability, Americans for Prosperity, Citizens Against Government Waste, the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs, American Shareholders Association, Generation Joshua, Ocean State Policy Research Institution, Young Americans for Liberty, RightMarch.com, Young Americans for Freedom, GOProud, Frontiers of Freedom, the Hispanic Leadership Fund, the Civitas Institute, Tea Party Washington, DC, Less Government, Citizen Outreach, the National Center for Public Policy Research, Capital Research Center, American Council for Health Care Reform, RenewAmerica, the Indian American Conservative Council, the Mississippi Center for Public Policy, the Florida Center-Right Meeting, ReAL Action, ConservativeHQ.com