Kansas Governor Sam Brownback today signed a bill that would ensure that no taxpayer dollars are going to fund the abortion industry.
Kansas Senate Bill 436 would prioritize Title X grants, which are taxpayer-funded, by awarding them to full-service public health clinics and hospitals first. Planned Parenthood, which often receives these grants from various states, would be pushed to the end of the list because it does not provide comprehensive health care and, essentially, defunded.
Here’s more:
Gov. Sam Brownback vowed in his State of the State speech in January to make sure that “not a single dollar of taxpayer money goes to Planned Parenthood” through the Kansas Medicaid program.
But reimbursements continued. In early March, the state Department of Health and Environment said it was continuing to work on the termination of Planned Parenthood’s Medicaid funding “in accordance with the law.”
The termination letter came Tuesday from the department, Planned Parenthood officials said.
The letter from the state informing Planned Parenthood that it could no longer serve as provider under the state’s Medicaid program cited several reasons, including “noncompliance with applicable state laws” and “unethical or unprofessional conduct.” The organization has about a month to request a review of the decision.
The bill would make permanent a statute in the annual Kanasas budget that gives higher priority to comprehensive health care providers, according to Kansans for Life.
That’s good news for a Friday, but if the Obama administration’s response to states like Louisiana (school choice) or Tennessee (bathroom privacy) is any indicator, then they will go after Kansas as well. Because that’s what Democrats believe in: top-down control of states by an intrusive federal government. Still, Kansas can fight that.
Surprise, Trump cultists! You’ve been had by a con man.
Let’s get right to the details, thanks to this article from the Daily Wire:
So, you’re suckers.
Yes, you conservatives who keep waiting for Donald Trump to turn into Ronald Reagan, who hope to unify behind him thinking that he’ll surround himself with good people and that they will guide him to all the best decisions. Yes, you conservatives who bought into the Trumpian nonsense that he would blow up the system and change things in politics. In the last 24 hours Trump has indeed pivoted – directly against all of his supposedly conservative positions. Here are four examples:
[…]Trump Won’t Be Self-Funding. Remember that time Trump said he’d self-fund, unlike his rivals? Even as donors signal that they won’t be opening their pocketbooks for Trump, Trump announced that he won’t self-fund his campaign. “I’ll be putting up money,” he said, “but won’t be completely self-funding.” Instead, Trump said he would build a “world-class finance organization.” So all that talk about how people who take donations are being bribed to shill for donors – yeah, all that was patented Trump garbage.
Trump Hires A Former Goldman Sachs Fundraiser Who Managed Money For George Soros.Remember that time Donald Trump suggested that Ted Cruz was in the pocket of Goldman Sachs (“I know the guys at Goldman Sachs, they have total, total control over him”)? Remember Snaggletooth The Trumper™ who told Ted Cruz that Cruz should be wearing his “Goldman jacket”? Now Trump has hired Steve Mnuchin, chairman and CEO of Dune Capital Management LP and former Goldman Sachs partner, to head up his fundraising team. Mnuchin also worked at Soros Fund Management LLC. Yes, that Soros. George Soros. Mnuchin also donated thousands of dollars to Hillary Clinton, among other Democrats; since 1998, he’s donated twice as much money to Democrats as Republicans.
[…]So this is the new general election Trump. He looks just as dishonest and scheming as the old Trump, just with a fresh leftist taste sure to please the most ardent Bernie Sanders supporters. Conservative Trump voters – this is your Great Hope.
The article also mentions that Trump is open to raising the minimum wage, and that his tax plan and border security plan are just an opening statement, subject to negotiations. Two more minor things that don’t matter, right?
The media picks our nominee – whether it’s for president, Senate, or governor. That lucky individual has never fought a single battle for conservatives on a single issue in his entire life and has even carried water for the other side on some critically important issues. Yet, he ran as a conservative in the primary and railed against the Democrats. The media, whether local or national, anointed this individual and helped him run a dehumanization campaign against his opponent. Not surprisingly, that man wins the primary and the other man – irrespective of his lifelong reputation – is left with the image of a dirt bag in the minds of most voters by the end of the election.
[…]Just within the first 24 hours of becoming the presumptive nominee, Trump has floated Portman and Kasich as potential VP candidates, echoed the worst of the liberal talking points on minimum wage, and walked back his promise to self-fund his campaign – one of his most appealing taking points of the campaign.
Portman and Kasich are leftist establishment Republicans. You might remember that Portman embraced gay marriage and Kasich is opposed to protecting religious liberty from lawsuits and punishments by gay activists. Surprise! That’s who Trump is, too. A New York liberal pretending to be a Republican for his gullible TV-watching followers.
Trump supporters have never looked into Trump’s past positions, his political contributions, his bankruptcies, etc. They learned about Trump by watching him laugh and joke on their televisions. And their hatred for other candidates like Walker and Cruz isn’t based on any knowledge of Walker and Cruz – it’s just repeating the sound bites about Walker and Cruz uttered by Trump, and dutifully played over and over again by the mainstream media.
Here is what Trump would say if he were honest: “Believe me! I’m a liberal Democrat pretending to be a Republican! I can tell you that!” Just imagine that line spoken in Trump’s charismatic voice, over and over, Trump supporters. Maybe then you’ll realize what your laziness and ignorance cost us.
In a reversal, Donald Trump expressed openness to raising the federal minimum wage during an interview on Wednesday.
“I’m looking at that, I’m very different from most Republicans,” the presumptive GOP presidential nominee told CNN Wednesday about the prospect of increasing wages.
“You have to have something you can live on. But what I ‘m really looking to do is get people great jobs so they make much more money than that, much more money than the $15.”
The federal minimum wage is $7.25, but labor groups have been pushing for it to be raised to $15.
During a November debate, Trump voiced opposition to raising the minimum wage.
“I hate to say it, but we have to leave it the way it is,” he said during the debate.
Who expected Trump to be a leftist on economic issues? Anyone with two brain cells to rub together, that’s who. You could tell from his record, from his political donations, and other indicators that the man was a Democrat on economic issues. Everyone who did their homework on the candidates knew that. We all knew that he wanted to raise taxes on the most productive people, that he wanted to raise minimum wage, that he didn’t want to reform the entitlements that are bankrupting the country, he thinks using eminent domain to take private property to benefit big business is a great idea, he wanted to increase agricultural subsidies, and so on. Conservatives reject Trump, and continue to reject Trump, because Trump takes the wrong positions on economic issues.
The recent debate over the stimulus bill has lead some observers to think that economists are hopelessly divided on issues of public policy. That is true regarding business cycle theory and, specifically, the virtues or defects of Keynesian economics. But it is not true more broadly.
My favorite textbook covers business cycle theory toward the end of the book (the last four chapters) precisely because that theory is controversial. I believe it is better to introduce students to economics with topics about which there is more of a professional consensus. In chapter two of the book, I include a table of propositions to which most economists subscribe, based on various polls of the profession. Here is the list, together with the percentage of economists who agree:
A ceiling on rents reduces the quantity and quality of housing available. (93%)
Tariffs and import quotas usually reduce general economic welfare. (93%)
Flexible and floating exchange rates offer an effective international monetary arrangement. (90%)
Fiscal policy (e.g., tax cut and/or government expenditure increase) has a significant stimulative impact on a less than fully employed economy. (90%)
The United States should not restrict employers from outsourcing work to foreign countries. (90%)
The United States should eliminate agricultural subsidies. (85%)
Local and state governments should eliminate subsidies to professional sports franchises. (85%)
If the federal budget is to be balanced, it should be done over the business cycle rather than yearly. (85%)
The gap between Social Security funds and expenditures will become unsustainably large within the next fifty years if current policies remain unchanged. (85%)
Cash payments increase the welfare of recipients to a greater degree than do transfers-in-kind of equal cash value. (84%)
A large federal budget deficit has an adverse effect on the economy. (83%)
A minimum wage increases unemployment among young and unskilled workers. (79%)
The government should restructure the welfare system along the lines of a “negative income tax.” (79%)
Effluent taxes and marketable pollution permits represent a better approach to pollution control than imposition of pollution ceilings. (78%)
If we could get the American public to endorse all these propositions, I am sure their leaders would quickly follow, and public policy would be much improved. That is why economics education is so important.
The ones in bold are the ones that Trump denies.
A person cannot be a conservative and a supporter of Donald Trump – the two are mutually exclusive. Conservatives are people who do understand basic economics, and Trump supporters are people who do not understand basic economics. There is no overlap.
A friend of mine who is being asked by Trump supporters why she will not support Trump posted this article from the American Thinker.
It says:
[…]I am not over the Constitution, although apparently many are, because they have thrown in with a man who never mentions it and often runs afoul of it. Donald Trump was born “over” the Constitution and still is. He’s never been concerned with it. New York values don’t intersect with the Constitution. No, I am not over the idea of liberty, and thus I’m not quite over the fact that the Republican nominee is a man totally unfamiliar with this concept and a man who never ever looks at increased liberty as the answer for out of control government. Ever.
[…]When crony capitalism is destroying our free market, does Donald want to stop government from picking winners and losers? NO! He doubles down on ethanol subsidies. He obfuscates the issue of eminent domain. And he rails against trade, not even considering the obvious conclusion that the big stick of tariffs is centralized planning and government picking winners and losers on steroids.
[…]Trump is the establishment. His big check to party boss and establishment poster child Mitch McConnell has barely even cleared yet — a donation he followed up by insulting on Twitter those stupid Kentuckians who were willing to forgo McConnell’s crony gravy train to his home state in favor of a principled man like Matt Bevin. Trump brags he has been giving to Republicans lately, but these donations are to establishment Republicans running against outsiders!
[…]Alexander Hamilton said “if we must have an enemy at the head of Government, let it be one whom we can oppose, and for whom we are not responsible, who will not involve our party in the disgrace of his foolish and bad measures.” He was right. Many of you haven not heeded that lesson. I have, and I am proudly not over the nomination of big government New York liberal Donald J Trump.
In order to support Trump, conservatives would have to value insults and clowning above the Constitution and economics. We’re not willing to do that – although apparently many others are.
