What did you think the 2010 elections were about? If you listened to John Boehner in the weeks prior to the election, you might have thought the midterms were about jobs. When it came to mentioning jobs, he sounded like a veritable Mynah bird with Tourette’s Syndrome. “The American people are asking ‘Where are the jobs?’” “This election will be about jobs.”Jobs, jobs, jobs! Here-a job. There-a job. Everywhere a job-job.
But the self-proclaimed “small government”majority in the House have already made one thing crystal clear. Since taking over in January, the pursuit of creating and finding jobs for millions of unemployed Americans is no where to be found on their radar screen. If you were actually thinking jobs were going to trump The Great Culture Wars —well, consider yourself punk’d. It just doesn’t work that way in Tea-publican Land.
Tea Party Republicans who got elected in such overwhelming numbers have demonstrated they don’t think job creation was the reason they were elected at all. They have devoted their time to arguing, debating, giving speeches and writing bills on the subjects they believe are the most pressing issues facing the country: the defunding National Public Radio, which required an “emergency” meeting by House members; the declaring of English to be the country’s official language; and investigations of whether or not American Muslims are being “radicalized.”
The Defense of Marriage Act has been up for discussion, and later this week, the House of Representatives will vote on the very urgent crisis of whether or not to reaffirm the motto of “In God We Trust”!
But the one concern that reigns supreme, that is paramount in importance above all others is — are you ready? — the monitoring of every last pregnancy in America. From the bunch who claimed to be in such a rush to work on job creation, Tea-publicans have spent most of their time for the last three months focusing on human creation. Obviously, instead of studying economic incentives, wage rates, and manufacturing proposals, they have been devoting their hours on The Hill to studying wombs, ovaries, and fallopian tubes.
The amount of time invested by Republicans on women’s reproductive rights is so obsessive, it appears they may have established a new congressional tradition of writing an “Anti-Abortion Bill-of-the-Month”—— for in their three shorts months of governance they have drafted the same number of anti-abortion bills.
Although the Hyde Amendment, which barred the use of any federal funds for abortion, was passed in 1976, the GOP has written The“Protect Life Act” (HR 358) which would basically seek to doubly, triply, quadruply reaffirm the Hyde Amendment. The bill would also offer protection for anti-abortion healthcare workers who choose, on religious grounds, to refuse reproductive healthcare to women — including filling prescriptions for contraceptives.
Although the majority of families seeking the services of Planned Parenthood are there for birth control counseling, which actually prevents unplanned pregnancies that could lead to abortion, the Boehner led House has spent weeks drafting the Title X Abortion Provider Prohibition Act (HR 217) which will cut all funding to Planned Parenthood for family planning services.
But the Motherlode of all anti-abortion legislation is the recently written No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act (HR-3). It is yet another declaration of the denial of federal funding for abortion services, but this bill would require IRS agents to ask citizens undergoing a tax audit whether or not any woman in their family had been raped or had suffered incest which could have resulted in an abortion. Think about that for a second. Wrap your mind around the idea of having to describe your rape or a family member’s incest or an abortion to an IRS auditor.
Still thinking the election back in November was about jobs? Still thinking there is going to be “smaller government”?
Wherever they have taken over — whether in statehouses or in our nation’s Capitol — Tea Party Republicans have made it clear their concern is not jobs. They haven’t spent a single moment on one piece of legislation regarding jobs. To no one’s surprise, the Tea Party is not in power to fulfill voter mandates. They are in power to fulfill their mandate. And their mission. From God.