GOP will fund Planned Parenthood in budget deal

[The_Doctor]

Democrats had the leverage because House Republicans couldn't pass it on their own. So of course the GOP caved.

Why on Planned Parenthood and the Wall?

Because 1.) Abortion, for all the pro-life rhetoric, is not a hill the party wants to die on. They know a majority of white women voted Republican and a segment of them are pro-choice. So the GOP will do restrictions but stuff like PP are going to be harder. And no. Roberts will remain a pro - choice vote if the Court ever came close to overturning Roe. 2.) The wall hurts the Republican Party among the fastest growing bloc so of course the GOP swapped it out for more border security.

The leadership made the calculations to keep the Republican voting bloc together. It wasn't a particularly hard sell from the Dems most likely.

[The_Doctor]

Paul Ryan should have straight up told the democrats this :


You want planned parenthood funded well then fine agree to 70 billion dollars in cuts to other domestic spending or  dont filibuster tax reform and welfare reform. Also give that deal on live television .

You're like the Republican version of the liberal who thinks everything works like The West Wing.

the whole point is to prove to the American people the Dems wont compromise one bit on spending and tell them if they want to filibuster fine but the American people will know it is their filibuster what shut the government down.

Nobody cares.

The Republicans control the government. Everything the GOP does is on the GOP, not the Democrats. The average voter cannot hold in their brains for longer than 5 seconds that the Democrats can filibuster things in the Senate or that the radicals in the House force the leadership to negotiate with the Democrats. Go on, write an ad saying "Senate Democrats filibustered ..." and see how the traction on that is.

Ergo the Democratic minority have no, zip, zero, nay, nada reason to cooperate or help the GOP. They have all the political reasons in the world to obstruct and force the GOP to work with them (that's their leverage).

As for the unborn, the GOP has been conning their base on abortion for a generation now. And I say that as someone who wants abortion banned except to save the mother's life and would support defunding PP.

[The_Doctor]

If that were true, wouldn't Democrats have been blamed for the 2013 shutdown?

The Republicans won 2014. Crucially, for the congressional party to be blamed, they need to control a chamber of Congress. Democrats don't, so functionally, they get a free pass to say anything they want. Opposition is a low cost political strategy in our system to an unpopular President.