Speaker Pelosi: "No Apologies" for Including Taxpayer Funding for Contraceptives, Other Non-Economic Spending in Economic Bill

MONDAY, NOV 16, 2009

The House will meet at 2 p.m.

TUESDAY, NOV 17, 2009

The House will meet at 2:30 p.m.

WEDNESDAY, NOV 18, 2009

The House will meet at 10 a.m.

THURSDAY, NOV 19, 2009

The House will meet at 10 a.m.

FRIDAY, NOV 20, 2009

The House will meet at 9 a.m.

Leader Alert

Speaker Pelosi: "No Apologies" for Including Taxpayer Funding for Contraceptives, Other Non-Economic Spending in Economic Bill
Republicans Call for Bill Focused on Protecting and Creating Jobs

Washington, Jan 25 - Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), appearing this morning on ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos, said she has “no apologies” for including billions of dollars in spending unrelated to job creation – including taxpayer funding for contraceptives and the abortion industry – in congressional Democrats’ economic bill, which will reportedly be voted on by the House this week. The Speaker’s comments illustrate the degree to which congressional Democrats have taken President Obama's initial vision of a package focused on immediate job creation and fast-acting tax relief and turned it into just another bloated, unfocused, wasteful Washington spending bill. Here’s the exchange between Speaker Pelosi and Stephanopoulos:

STEPHANOPOULOS: We also heard from Congressman Boehner coming out of the meeting today that again a lot of that spending doesn’t even meet the same test you just talked about right now. … Hundreds of millions of dollars to expand family planning services. How is that stimulus?

PELOSI: Well, the family planning services reduce cost. They reduce cost. The states are in terrible fiscal budget crises now and part of what we do for children’s health, education and some of those elements are to help the states meet their financial needs. One of those -- one of the initiatives you mentioned, the contraception, will reduce costs to the states and to the federal government.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So no apologies for that?

PELOSI: No apologies. No. We have to deal with the consequences of the downturn in our economy. Food stamps, unemployment insurance, some of the initiatives you just mentioned. What the economists have told us from right to left. There is more bang for the buck, a term they use, by investing in food stamps and in unemployment insurance than in any tax cut.

Regardless of where anyone stands on taxpayer funding for contraceptives and the abortion industry, there is no doubt that this once little-known provision in the congressional Democrats’ spending plan has NOTHING to do with fixing the economy and creating more American jobs. And the contraceptive funding is not an isolated case; the Democratic bill is actually loaded with spending that has no connection to supporting economic growth. On NBC’s Meet the Press today, House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH) asked how such funding will help the economy:

“But spending $200 million to fix up the National Mall, $21 million for sod, over $200 million for contraceptives, how is this going to fix an ailing economy?”

Republicans want to work with President Obama on a bill that focuses on preserving and creating jobs and will make an immediate impact on America's struggling economy. But in the halls of the Democratic Congress, the economic recovery package is quickly becoming just another unfocused, runaway bill loaded with slow and wasteful Washington spending on every conceivable goal. The American people are right to ask: just what else is in this legislation?

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HOUSE Republican Leader John Boehner