No Taxpayer Funding For Hypocrisy Act

Well, that's what it should be called. The No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act is under consideration again this year.

First of all, the Hyde Amendment has been used in various forms both legislatively and via executive order to prevent federal funds from being used to provide abortion services. This proposed legislation does nothing to change that. But it will have a huge effect on private insurance. This bill denies insurance-related tax credits only for small businesses that choose health plans that cover abortion. The data is a bit dated, but something like 87% of private health plans cover abortion. Since the tax break would go away for small businesses they would be less likely to offer those plans, which could cause insurance providers to quit offering coverage for abortion and force women to suck it up or buy additional insurance elsewhere if they can. Consequently, it makes getting an abortion more difficult, which is the intent.

This tax credit loss is easily a tax increase by Republican party standards. For some reason this tax increase is not applied to big businesses. Setting aside for a moment that corporations are people and probably don't need access to abortion services and that corporations are huge contributors to election campaigns, I'm sure there's a good reason for not including them.

Compare the list of cosponsors with the list of representatives who pledged to never raise taxes and you'll find quite the overlap.

Cathy McMorris Rodgers is not a cosponsor of the bill, but she does oppose tax increases no matter what form they may take. Yet for some strange reason I don't expect to hear her loudly voicing her opposition to this bill. If that seems unreasonable of me, I apologize.