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| Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif. "This is a vendetta against Planned Parenthood," on ABC News |
The deal was struck to avert a government shutdown, and affected many areas of government. But the preponderance of cuts affected social services and government protection of the population but not spending for wars being fought on foreign soil.
In cutting essential services like Planned Parenthood, the targeted cuts show that human needs like family planning and job creation rank far below the needs to fight wars that many Americans feel have nothing to do with our country or well being.
The U.S. is funding more wars in the world than any other single country according to a new report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). .
"The Pentagon budget is currently $693 billion, accounting for more than all other US discretionary spending combined," and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq alone cost more than $300,000 every minute, reported the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War. SIPRI reported that world military expenditures grew to a record $1,600 billion in 2010.
In an attempt to preserve his standing among centrists and even some Republicans, by backing what he called $32 Billion in "painful cuts," President Obama may succeed in deteriorating what ever liberal base of support he had.
President Obama successfully resisted Republican efforts to take all federal money from the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, reported the NY Times. But money for the program that finances many family-planning services provided by Planned Parenthood and other organizations, Title X of the Public Health Service Act were reduced to $300 million, from $317 million.
The Environmental Protection Agency also lost 16% of its budget, most of which came out of a cut in its Land and Water Conservation activities. Other cuts came out of federal programs related to climate change, food safety and inspection, a labor department program to promote "green" jobs and Pell grants for students attending summer schools.
It's not as if this comes at a time when people are feeling good about their security. Some families have been staving off bankrupctcy by pushing day through day by using their savings. Others are on the brink of bankruptcy, their savings eaten to the bone by this 3-year long recession.
So far, the federal government has shown little concern for the average small business owner in dealing with the economic downturn.
First the federal government bailed out irresponsible banks that had purposefully engaged in risky mortgage investments with federally backed bail-outs. After stepping up funding and attention to ongoing wars in Afghanistan and military upkeep in Iraq, the upper middle class, middle class, and working classes have been forgotten.
I know one family whose name won't be used here. The husband's firm hasn't made a profit in over two and a half years. His wife who ran a profitable home decorating business prior to the September 2008 stock market fall, hasn't made a dime since then. They're lucky, they still have savings left.
Then there's the executive who had a 100-agent real estate firm. He's been emptying out his savings to run the business at a $50,000 per month deficit since 2008. He may run out of money soon.
And there's two female friends who haven't had any or steady work for more than three years, with no end in sight. One friend sold her cars, her bicycle, and is now contemplating selling her house--a multi-family and her only source of income and security, because she can't find a job.
Both she and my other friend are in their late 40's, have bachelor or advanced degrees, and speak English fluently. Yet they have received little or no help from our federal government.
And then there are the millions of single women who are losing their jobs or being replaced by men in this economy and have no one to turn to for help.
Some of the services provided by Planned Parenthood include pap smears, prenatal care, AIDS screening and mammograms--not to mention family planning.
Conservative elected officials targeted Planned Parenthood as an institution that provides abortions in order to sway public opinion, even though the group is not allowed to perform abortions, according to ABC-News.
Leaving these women to find other means of health care, women who are struggling in $8-per-hour jobs that barely or can't even pay the rent is sure to put additional stressors on the weakest sectors of the economy.
The House must still vote for final passage on the underlying spending bill before the cuts go to the Senate for a vote later this month.
Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif., said that the cuts were a "vendetta" against Planned Parenthood. A video webcast of her speech before Congress can be seen on ABC-News.
"Now you may not like Planned Parenthood, so be it. There's many on our side of the aisle that don't like Halliburton. And Halliburton is responsible for extortion, for bribery, for 10 cases of misconduct in the federal database, for a $7 billion sole-source contract. But do you see us over here filing amendments to wipe out funding for Halliburton? No, because frankly that would be irresponsible. I would suggest to you it would serve us all very well if we moved on with this process and started focusing on creating jobs for the Americans who desperately want them."
