Explanation of the potential government shutdown and Boehner's resignation
In July some very selectively edited videos were released that showed Planned Parenthood executives bargaining over "fetal tissue" to be used for research purposes:
Excerpts from a Time article wrote:Two sting videos that claim to implicate Planned Parenthood in the illegal practice to selling fetal tissue for a profit prompted a Congressional investigation of the organization.
The first video released in mid-July that was secretly made by the Center for Medical Progress, a group that includes well known anti-abortion activists, centered around one question: What happens to the fetuses that result from abortions performed at Planned Parenthood? A second surreptitiously filmed video by the same group was released [also in July] Its central question: Whether Planned Parenthood profits from the sale of such tissue. (The group insists it does not.)
Fetal tissue is valuable for medical research; the National Institutes of Health spent $76 million on fetal research in 2014, and fetal tissue has contributed to vaccines for polio, rubella and chicken pox. While recent efforts to transplant fetal tissue to treat conditions like Parkinson’s haven’t been as consistently successful, it’s still critical to scientific progress.
In the video, Dr. Deborah Nucatola, senior director of medical services, notes that the fees Planned Parenthood charges are within laws that govern fetal tissue procurement; the fees cover the expenses of handling, storing and shipping the material, not for the material itself. But in calling for the Congressional investigation into Planned Parenthood’s practices, House Speaker John Boehner said: “When an organization monetizes an unborn child — and with the cavalier attitude portrayed in this horrific video — we must all act.”
Several Republican presidential candidates have also criticized Planned Parenthood’s practices, invoking the organization’s “disregard for the culture of life” and it’s “penchant for profiting off the tragedy of a destroyed human life.”
There’s no evidence on the video that Planned Parenthood makes a profit from fetal tissue. Nucatola is recorded as saying the organization pays anywhere from $30 to $100 per specimen, and that those fees cover administrative and handling costs, not the cost of the tissue itself. (Those costs are far lower than what other companies that broker exchange of tissues from hospitals and abortion clinics to those who want to study them charge.)
Numerous investigations in Georgia, Indiana, Massachusetts, South Dakota, Pennsylvania, and Kansas have cleared Planned parenthood of lawbreaking, but that isn't enough for the Republican base and the Tea Party. Under current law, federal funds can't be used for abortion, but federal Medicaid is required to cover things like breast exams and STD testing at Planned Parenthood clinics (which they report is 97% of what they do), and Title X provides grants for family planning including birth control. The Republican base and Tea Party don't want any money to go to Planned Parenthood for any reason.
The Republican party currently control the House of Representatives by a 59 seat margin, but that means that only 30 Representatives have to split off in order for a bill to fail to pass, or to vote out the current Speaker The House "Freedom Caucus", basically the main group of Tea Party supporters in the House (the actual Tea Party Caucus is defunct), has 42 members.
On the Democratic side, the reason they would vote against any budget, even one that funded Planned Parenthood fully, is because of the 2013 "budget sequester". What is the Budget Sequester, you ask? Well, it's complicated, here is
Whithouse.gov's statement on the issue:
What Is the Sequester? Why Now?
In the last few years, President Obama and both parties in Congress have worked together to reduce our deficit by more than $2.5 trillion through a combination of spending cuts and increased tax rates.
In 2011, Congress passed a law saying that if they couldn’t agree on a plan to reduce our deficit by $4 trillion — including the $2.5 trillion in deficit reduction lawmakers in both parties have already accomplished over the last few years — about $1 trillion in automatic, arbitrary and across the board budget cuts would start to take effect in 2013.
Unfortunately, Congress hasn’t compromised, and as a consequence, harmful cuts — known as the sequester — begin March 1.
These cuts will jeopardize our military readiness and eviscerate job-creating investments in education and energy and medical research, and don’t take into account whether they eliminate some bloated program that has outlived its usefulness, or cut a vital service that Americans depend on every single day.
To prevent a costly, self-inflicted wound to our economy and middle class families, President Obama put forward a plan to avoid these harmful cuts and reduce the deficit by cutting spending and closing tax loopholes. Most importantly, his plan protects the investments we need to help strengthen the middle class, grow our economy and keep our country safe. Read more about President Obama’s plan.
Now it’s up to Congress to act by replacing deep cuts with a more balanced approach — one that asks the wealthiest to pay a little more instead of forcing our children, seniors, troops, military families and the entire middle class to bear the burden of deficit reduction. The President is willing to compromise, but on behalf the middle class, he cannot accept a deal that undercuts their economic security.
Now it’s up to Congress to act by replacing deep cuts with a more balanced approach — one that asks the wealthiest to pay a little more instead of forcing our children, seniors, troops, military families and the entire middle class to bear the burden of deficit reduction. The President is willing to compromise, but on behalf the middle class, he cannot accept a deal that undercuts their economic security.
“The whole design of these arbitrary cuts was to make them so unattractive and unappealing that Democrats and Republicans would actually get together and find a good compromise of sensible cuts as well as closing tax loopholes and so forth. And so this was all designed to say we can't do these bad cuts; let’s do something smarter. That was the whole point of this so-called sequestration."
—President Obama
In short, Democrats and Republicans passed a bill that said if both parties couldn't come together and compromise on a way to reduce the deficit, a whole bunch of basically random cuts to both military and non-military programs would take effect automatically. No one compromised and the cuts took effect.
Most Republicans (the Tea Party are kind of "Meh" and could take it or leave it) want to restore full funding to the military, but Democrats and Obama won't vote for or sign a budget that restores the sequester for military but not non-military spending. Especially since the last several budgets that Republicans tried to pass funded the restored military with deep cuts to social programs. And of course (it goes without saying) repeal Obamacare.
So this brings us to 2015. Congress has passed several "continuing resolutions" to keep the government funded at sequester levels, but the last one runs out at the end of September. After the PP videos came out, there are at least 30 Republicans who will absolutely never vote for a budget or continuing resolution that funds Planned Parenthood in any way, and Obama and the Senate has promised to veto/filibuster a budget or CR that doesn't.
As the Speaker of the House, Boehner is the leader of his party in that house (Boehner would be Prime Minister right now if we had a parliamentary system), and basically has (or had) 2 options:
- Pass a budget that defunds Planned Parenthood and let the Democrats in the Senate filibuster/Obama veto it, resulting in a government shutdown. Republicans would then try to convince people that it's the Democrat's fault that the government is shutdown.
The first problem with this option is that Americans oppose a shutdown over this issue by a huge margin:
Only 20% support a government shutdown over defunding PP. The second problem is that the mainstream Republican party believe that if they want to keep being elected to government, they need to show that they can govern responsibly, and that if the Republicans shutdown the government over such a marginal issue, it will kill their chances of being elected to the Presidency or holding the Senate in 2016.
- Pass a budget that funds Planned Parenthood with Democratic support.
The problem with this option is that Democrats aren't going to give up their votes for nothing. They will probably demand a full repeal of the sequester in any budget or CR that they vote for. (hopefully, democrats are notoriously spineless) If that happens, Boehner will lose his speakership for sure, and the republican party will probably fracture in the aftermath, since the Tea Party will feel stabbed in the back by the GOP establishment (or as they call them, the GOPe).
Most likely, Boenher took a third option: negotiated with Pelosi and the Democrats to support a "clean" CR that funds the government and Planned Parenthood at current levels, but promised to resign so the Tea Party can have their pound of flesh.
