House Republicans vote to repeal parts of Obamacare, defund Planned Plarenthood

Republican Congresswoman Mia Love
Republican Congresswoman Mia Love

Great news from the Daily Signal.

Excerpt:

The House approved a budget reconciliation bill Friday that would repeal portions of Obamacare and cut federal funds to Planned Parenthood for one year.

The legislation, called the Restoring Americans’ Healthcare Freedom Reconciliation Act, was passed in a 240-189 vote.

[…]Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., chairman of the House Budget Committee, said in a statement the bill “repeals the most coercive components of Obamacare—eliminating onerous taxes, the individual and employer mandates, an Obamacare slush fund, and lifting unnecessary burdens on employers and employees.”

Price noted the legislation would increase funding for community health centers while eliminating government support for Planned Parenthood, which is under investigation after a series of undercover videos related to its role with aborted baby body parts.

Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony List, a pro-life group, praised the House’s efforts to defund Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider.

Naturally, Democrats voted for Obamacare and for Planned Parenthood. Because they love when people lose their doctors and health care, unless their doctor is an abortionist, and the health care is an abortion.

Cato Institute graphs education spending against test scores
Cato Institute graphs education spending against student achievement

Meanwhile, House Republicans also voted to extend a school voucher program for low-income, minority students in Washington, D.C..

The Daily Signal reports on that, too:

Speaker John Boehner cinched victory Wednesday as House Republicans smoothly extended his linchpin private school voucher program for low-income students through 2021.

The D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program provides students in Washington’s struggling school districts with federally backed vouchers to attend a private school of choice. The House confirmed its reauthorization Wednesday evening in a near party-line vote of 240 to 191.

[…]Boehner, the product of Catholic school, helped begin the program in 2003 while he served as chairman of the House Education and the Workforce Committee. The program has operated as an alternative for parents who can’t afford to transfer their kids out of a failing school district to a more effective private school.

Over the past 10 years, more than 6,100 inner-city students have used the vouchers to “escape underperforming schools,” Boehner noted.

Proponents boast data finding that among those enrolled, 90 percent graduated from high school, and 88 percent of the class of 2015 moved on to pursue higher education. The average annual household income of the students enrolled falls around $20,575.

Lindsey Burke, a fellow in education policy at The Heritage Foundation, previously told The Daily Signal the program marks a “beacon of education success” that has allowed other states to pursue similar school choice options.

“You’d be hard-pressed to find many other education programs that can deliver those types of outcomes,” Burke said.

The $45-million program has faced Democratic pushback since its inception and will likely surface in the ongoing school choice battle between Republicans and President Barack Obama this fall.

In anticipation of the program’s reauthorization, the White House issued a statement Tuesday reaffirming the administration’s “strong” opposition, but held back a veto threat.

The president has attempted to defund the program every year, aligning with Democrats who argue that the scholarship funnels money out of D.C.’s public schools system.

It still has to make it through the Senate, and then Obama might veto it. But so what if he does, that just means we get a Republican president in 2016, when it comes out where Democrats really stand on providing quality education for poor, minority children. Republicans are all for it. Democrats oppose vouchers because they want to make sure that they have an ample supply of uneducated, dependent voters.

One thought on “House Republicans vote to repeal parts of Obamacare, defund Planned Plarenthood”

  1. The Cato Institute graph is very revealing. But I fear the reality is much worse since testing and other measures of “student achievement” have been so totally dumbed down. The flat-line portion representing outcomes should, in fact, be a nose dive downward….

    Whilst spending has increased for teacher pensions and the dysfunctional, leviathan bureaucracy and the make-work jobs of the education industry (that could care less about education), actual learning has gotten progressively less and less. We are a functionally illiterate nation because of government schools. There is no constitutional role for government in education.

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