Republican men of Congress: Creating jobs and protecting women's rights since 2011 (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)
In a vote of 251 to 175, the House passed H.R. 3, the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act, to ensure that taxpayer dollars will not be used for abortions even though the Hyde Amendment already prohibits the use of taxpayer dollars for abortion.
But that's not all. According to the National Women's Law Center, the bill will increase costs and taxes for millions of women and small businesses, which, as as David Waldman pointed out yesterday, completely violates those precious Tea Party values of shrinking government and cutting taxes. In fact, it will raise taxes on men too—because anyone who has a health insurance policy that covers abortion, whether they use it for abortion or not, will not be allowed to take a tax deduction for that insurance policy.
And even though Republicans ultimately removed the language in the bill that created a distinction between "forcible rape" and kinda-sorta-but-not-really rape, they're still using a backdoor maneuver to create that distinction anyway and to close the rape loophole in order to protect American taxpayers from being fleeced by all those scheming pregnant 13-year-old con artists.
In case you were wondering, no, this bill will not create any jobs. Or reduce the deficit. Or save lives. Or reduce abortion. But it will make it that much harder for women to obtain safe and affordable health care and to exercise their legal rights.
For Republicans—and a handful of their anti-woman Democratic accomplices—that's what really matters.