There are lots of ways to describe a business with $2 billion dollars in assets — but “charity” isn’t one of them. And yet, that’s how Democrats must see Planned Parenthood, the “nonprofit” that just took in its biggest taxpayer-funded haul in history: $618 million dollars. Now, as if that weren’t enough, they’ve stuck out their hand for more — trying to cash in on the pandemic relief that’s clearly meant for small businesses. Well, Planned Parenthood isn’t “small” and isn’t eligible. And if the country’s abortion tycoon doesn’t give the money back, Senate Republicans want the government to come and take it.

The Paycheck Protection loans were supposed to be for hurting mom and pops — not abortion tycoons trying to stop people from being moms and pops. And Planned Parenthood knew it. When they swindled $80 million dollars out of the small business pool in 2020, they knew the rules. The government specifically excluded big businesses, Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) pointed out. For a company with 16,000 employees to say otherwise, Republicans have said, is fraud. They not only cheated taxpayers out of the money — they poached it from desperate employers who need these loans to stay afloat.

Of course, the other outrage is that Planned Parenthood didn’t need the loans, because guess what? They were still operating! Even in states where governors explicitly told them to stop, they went ahead performing abortions anyway — cramming women into unsafe waiting rooms and openly defying states’ orders. While everyone else was taking a hit to their bottom line because of the lockdown, their cash registers didn’t stop ringing. In fact, some affiliates bragged they’d never been busier!

For months, Republicans have been holding the Small Business Administration’s (SBA) feet to the fire, demanding that they get those dollars back. Maybe there was confusion in the mad dash for cash last April, but there’s no confusion now. So why is the SBA still forking over millions to Planned Parenthood? Good question, Paul says. And yet, “one more affiliate was approved for a second PPP loan while conservatives were leading the call for an investigation!”

“The Trump administration saw that they lied,” Paul explains. “They knew they got the money illegally… So they made they made a ruling… on what affiliates are and who controls them. And so the Trump administration said, ‘Send the money back.’ A few of the Planned Parenthoods did send some money back, but most of them kept the money.” Now, with the commander-in-abortion Joe Biden in charge, the SBA is even more indifferent. When officials came before the Small Business Committee where Paul is the ranking Republican, he said they asked them: “Look, we’ve seen the data, and we know that you’re giving second loans to Planned Parenthood after you already told them it was illegal. Why aren’t you pushing to get all of the money back — and why in the world would you be giving second loans to entities that you knew were getting it illegally?” “They professed not to understand,” Paul said.

That was even more infuriating, the senator explained, because these same officials had bragged in their testimony about how they were surveilling and catching ineligible businesses. And that’s when Paul asked the administrator directly: “‘Have you changed the policy? Have you changed the Trump policy and are Planned Parenthood affiliates now able to get this money?’ He said, ‘No, we haven’t changed the policy.’ … So we immediately sent a letter to the Department of Justice, to the inspector general for the Small Business Administration and to the Small Business Administration itself [demanding an investigation].”

At the end of the day, these are Biden officials. “And, as you know,” Paul said, “Planned Parenthood dictates the politics of the Left and dictates the politics of the Democrat Party. And I think that they’re going to keep giving them money, even though it is overtly against the law. But,” he warned, “they also know now that I’m going to be dogged in pursuing this, and we’re not going to let go.” There’s a chance the inspector general will take this seriously, Paul told listeners. “If there’s anything that’s pretty close to independent in the federal government — an independent watchdog — it’s the inspector general. So we’re going to keep pushing it on all fronts… If they’re breaking the law, we want them to stop.”

He’s right. Planned Parenthood doesn’t need a bailout. It needs a blackout of taxpayer funds!

Originally published here.

H.R. 1: You Can Run, But You Can’t I.D.

Senate Democrats worked themselves into a fury dressing down Georgia’s election law in a hearing this week. They claimed the bill was thoroughly racist, and that 380 bills introduced in nearly every state were designed to suppress the minority vote. They insisted the only solution that would adequately counter this groundswell of racism was their federal election takeover, H.R. 1. Of course, they’re reaching. They’re being aided by the media, because they know that most of these election bills actually contain much-needed reforms for a system ripe for abuse, as the 2020 election demonstrated. The Democrats want to tilt the playing field in their favor, but they’re doing everything they can to build the narrative that they’re really setting it straight.

Fortunately, the American people aren’t buying it. In fact, Democrats only succeeded in demonstrating how disconnected they are from the American voter — the kind of disconnect where they drove the truck to the lake and left the boat at home. Take the voter ID provision in the Georgia law, which the Democrats repeatedly condemned in the hearing. A McLaughlin & Associates poll last week found likely voters support requiring “voters to present a valid government issued form of identification to prove that they are who they say they are when casting their vote or requesting an absentee ballot,” as John McLaughlin described on radio, by a whopping 61 points — 78 percent to 17 percent. Far from the racist “Jim Crow” relic the media describes, voter ID is even popular with African Americans (72 percent support, 18 percent oppose). Even Democratic voters overwhelmingly support voter ID (68 percent support, 24 percent oppose). Significantly, the survey includes voters in Arizona, Maine, Montana, and West Virginia, states with Democratic senators that might face electoral consequences if they support H.R. 1.

With such overwhelming support, voter ID is the type of slam-dunk issue that politicians dream about. I mean, in this divided world in which we live, I doubt you could get 78 percent of people to say ice cream is good. There is no category of voters that solidly opposes voter ID laws, nearly every group overwhelming supports them, despite the media’s efforts, because they’re just common sense. In fact, the numbers are so shocking I had to read it twice. At first, I thought maybe McLaughlin only surveyed conservatives. But no, American voters are really that much in favor of a commonsense election requirement that Democratic politicians are trying to abolish.

That raises the question, why are Democratic politicians so keen on spinning such an unpopular issue to rewrite U.S. election law? The answer is: money and power. If Democratic politicians can push through H.R. 1, they will permanently rig the election system to make it easy to cheat, ensuring that Republicans never win again, explained McLaughlin. They will also institute “taxpayer funding of campaigns,” and then proceed to “pay themselves a salary from the campaign with taxpayer funds.” That’s why the name “For the People Act” is misleading. It should be called the Corrupt Politicians Act.

The good news is, Americans are fed up with extreme policies and aloof manner of Democratic politicians. As a pollster, McLaughlin keeps his finger on the people’s pulse, and he believes we’re already seeing the pushback in the resentment towards liberal stars Gavin Newsom and Andrew Cuomo. Perhaps Democrats in Congress will see the same backlash in the 2022 midterms.

Originally published here.

This is a publication of the Family Research Council. Mr. Perkins is president of FRC.