House Speaker Nancy Pelosi attempted to ensure a Hyde Amendment loophole is included in a coronavirus economic stimulus proposal, reported the Daily Caller Thursday.
According to the report:
Speaking to the Daily Caller, those officials alleged that while negotiating the stimulus with U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, Pelosi tried to lobby for “several” provisions that stalled bipartisan commitment to the effort. One was a mandate for up to $1 billion to reimburse laboratory claims, which White House officials say would set a precedent of health spending without protections outlined in the Hyde Amendment.
One White House official reportedly explained:
A new mandatory funding stream that does not have Hyde protections would be unprecedented. Under the guise of protecting people, Speaker Pelosi is working to make sure taxpayer dollars are spent covering abortion—which is not only backwards, but goes against historical norms.
Speaker Pelosi says lawmakers should "save it for another day" if they have complaints about the coronavirus response bill: "We don't need 48 hours. We need to just make a decision to help families right now … in an emergency status where we have to get the job done" pic.twitter.com/Ek1QeksXZ6
— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) March 12, 2020
Another White House official reportedly called the provision a “slush fund,” and a third asked “what the Hyde Amendment and abortion have to do with protecting Americans from coronavirus?”
President Donald Trump said he would sign any coronavirus stimulus bill that Congress passed, but House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy announced his opposition to Pelosi’s proposal and urged a rewrite over the next day or two.
We owe it to the American people to get this right, and I am confident that if we come together as adults, we can act responsibly in the next 48 hours.
But a “my way or the highway” approach is not the right way to handle a serious health epidemic. pic.twitter.com/bDWd0G8ug0
— Kevin McCarthy (@GOPLeader) March 12, 2020
Pelosi wasted the whole week behind closed doors drafting a partisan bill full of liberal fantasies that have nothing to do w/ Coronavirus.
Republicans are ready to work w/ Dems on SERIOUS solutions.
Now is not the time for politics. Pelosi needs to stop the games & work w/ us.
— Steve Scalise (@SteveScalise) March 12, 2020
Pelosi, however, criticized McCarthy’s plan, stating “families have needs,” and that a decision was needed “to help families right now.”
In July 2019, Democrat 2020 candidate Joe Biden, after reversing course on the Hyde Amendment several times, then revealed his health plan would enshrine Roe v. Wade into the Constitution and force taxpayers to fund abortion.
The Biden campaign said his health plan would build on the “progress’ of Obamacare’s contraceptive mandate that offers “free preventive care including contraception,” by “repealing the Hyde Amendment because health care is a right that should not be dependent on one’s zip code or income.”
In 2016, failed Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton accepted the endorsement of abortion giant Planned Parenthood and called for an end to the Hyde Amendment. Clinton claimed the longstanding provision was “making it harder for low-income women to exercise their full rights” to abortion.
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