January, 21 2015, 11:00pm EDT
NARAL Pro-Choice America: Switching From One Bad Abortion Ban Bill To Another Will Not Solve The GOP's Political Problem
New Bill Would Impose Small Business Tax and Codify Current Abortion Ban Laws
WASHINGTON
Statement from Ilyse Hogue, President of NARAL Pro-Choice America, on today's action in the House:
"The Tea Party-led Congress is desperately trying to save face after being forced to abandon their abortion ban bill yesterday. So what do they do? They substitute a bill that is equally bad policy. H.R.7 will not only limit women's ability to make health care choices it will also raise taxes on small business who provide comprehensive health care to their employees. Banning abortion and raising taxes on small business share one thing in common: they are about as far as the GOP can get from the priorities of the American people.
"Let's be clear, switching from one bad abortion ban bill to another will not solve their political problem. The problem is not their rhetoric, it's their policies. If this bill were ever to become law, it would hurt millions. But that will not happen. This bill will not become law.
"Today's exercise in the House is not about making public policy, nor is it about helping American women and families. It is about catering to a small minority of voters--anti-abortion activists who are descending on Washington for their annual march. It is nothing but a sad waste of time and waste of the faith that voters put in the Republican Party to come up with new solutions to actual problems in 2015.
"On the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, today's action in the House is a vivid reminder of the constant attack women are under from politicians who--unlike most Americans--refuse to trust us and allow us to control our own bodies and make our own decisions about our lives."
Warning: This Bill Is Not What You Think. Here is the Truth:
Far more sweeping in scope than its name implies, the legislation is not about only public funding. It would indeed, permanently codify all the current-law abortion bans, such as the Hyde Amendment. That alone makes it totally unacceptable. However, this bill goes much further:
- It revives the failed Stupak-Pitts amendment to the ACA, effectively banning abortion coverage in the new health system, even for women in state insurance exchanges who use their own, private funds to pay for their insurance. Experts have stated this could also jeopardize the availability of private insurance coverage of abortion for all women in all private health plans nationwide.
- It imposes tax penalties on small businesses that choose private health plans that cover abortion care, with the goal of driving consumers away from these plans. (Absent political interference, 87 percent of private plans cover abortion services.)
- It permanently blocks abortion coverage for low-income women, civil servants, D.C. residents, and military women by recodifying anti-choice riders that reside elsewhere throughout federal law. Congress should be repealing these unfair and discriminatory abortion bans, not recodifying them.
- It bans coverage of abortion services for women insured by multi-state health plans under the ACA--private health-insurance plans which offer consumers a uniform array of health benefits in every state in which they operate.
- And it mandates health plans to make biased, one-sided "disclosures" of abortion coverage and force plans to mislead consumers about the health-care law's treatment of abortion coverage. (Note: these are terrible policy proposals, clearly designed to make unavailable abortion coverage in the private market. However, their inclusion in this bill is particularly perplexing; whether through drafting error or malintent, the provisions reference a section of the ACA that the bill also happens to repeal.)
Yesterday, NARAL Pro-Choice America released polling from key congressional districts showing how toxic the 20- week abortion issue is for Republicans.
The poll found:
- The overwhelming majority (66-75%) of voters support legal abortion.
- The majority of voters (56-61%) will be less likely to vote for the representative if they vote in favor of the 20-week abortion ban
- Focusing on restricting abortion at 20 weeks does not reflect the priorities of the voters.
Full polling memo here: https://www.prochoiceamerica.org/assets/download-files/polling-on-support-for-20.pdf
For over 50 years, Reproductive Freedom for All (formerly NARAL Pro-Choice America) has fought to protect and advance reproductive freedom at the federal and state levels—including access to abortion care, birth control, pregnancy and post-partum care, and paid family leave—for everybody. Reproductive Freedom for All is powered by its more than 4 million members from every state and congressional district in the country, representing the 8 in 10 Americans who support legal abortion.
202.973.3000LATEST NEWS
'Fascism Getting Turned Up' as Trump FBI Arrests Wisconsin County Judge
"This isn't justice," said one observer. "It's a warning shot: Obey, or get cuffed."
Apr 25, 2025
This is a breaking story... Please check back for possible updates...
Federal agents arrested a sitting Wisconsin judge on Friday, accusing her of helping an undocumented immigrant evade arrest after he appeared in her courtroom last week, FBI Director Kash Patel said on social media.
In a since-deleted post, Patel said the FBI arrested Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan "on charges of obstruction."
"We believe Judge Dugan intentionally misdirected federal agents away from the subject to be arrested in her courthouse... allowing the subject—an illegal alien—to evade arrest," Patel wrote. "Thankfully, our agents chased down the perp on foot and he's been in custody since, but the judge's obstruction created increased danger to the public."
FBI arrests judge in escalation of Trump immigration enforcement effort Federal agents arrested Milwaukee Circuit Court Judge Hannah Dugan on obstruction charges. Dugan is accused of “helping” an immigrant evade arrest. The fascism getting turned up!
[image or embed]
— RootsAction (@rootsaction.org) April 25, 2025 at 8:05 AM
It is unclear why Patel deleted the post. U.S. Marshals Service spokesperson Brady McCarron and multiple Milwaukee County judges confirmed Dugan's arrest, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. McCarron said Dugan is facing two federal felony counts: obstruction and concealing an individual.
Responding to Dugan's arrest, liberal podcaster Brian Allen wrote on social media: "This isn't justice. It's a warning shot: Obey, or get cuffed."
Keep ReadingShow Less
ICE Admits They Didn't Have a Warrant When They Arrested Mahmoud Khalil
"ICE has admitted it detained Mahmoud illegally and without a warrant—to justify it, they are now flat out lying with an absurd claim that he tried to flee," said a staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights.
Apr 25, 2025
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents did not have a warrant when they arrested Palestinian activist and green-card holder Mahmoud Khalil on March 8, according to court papers filed by the Department of Homeland Security on Thursday—an admission that elicited outrage from members of Khalil's legal team.
Marc Van Der Hout, an attorney representing Khalil, said Thursday that "DHS agents who arrested Mahmoud lied to him: They wrote in their arrest report that the agents told him that they had an arrest warrant, but DHS has now admitted in their filing that that was a lie and that there was no warrant at all at the time of the arrest."
"The government's admission is astounding," added Van Der Hout.
Officers with DHS served Khalil with a warrant after his arrest when he arrived at an ICE facility in New York for processing, according to court filings. In the filing, an attorney for DHS argued that "an exception to the warrant requirement exists where the immigration officer has reason to believe that the individual is likely to escape before a warrant can be obtained."
According to the government, immigration agents did not need a warrant to arrest Khalil because his conduct gave them reason to believe it was likely he would flee. The government also alleged that Khalil "refused to cooperate" with immigration agents arresting him—an account that Khalil's supporters say contradicts a video of his arrest that was taken by his wife, Noor Abdalla.
"ICE has admitted it detained Mahmoud illegally and without a warrant—to justify it, they are now flat out lying with an absurd claim that he tried to flee. At every step of the way, the Trump administration has flouted the law," said Samah Sisay, a staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights.
Another attorney for Khalil, Amy Greer, said she was on the phone with Khalil, his wife, and even spoke to the agent making the arrest on March 8.
"In the face of multiple agents in plain clothes who clearly intended to abduct him, and despite the fact that those agents repeatedly failed to show us a warrant, Mahmoud remained calm and complied with their orders," she said Thursday. "Today we now know why they never showed Mahmoud that warrant—they didn't have one."
According to CNN, these latest documents were filed to fulfill a request from the New Jersey federal district court judge overseeing Khalil's federal case, who directed Khalil's legal team and attorneys at the Department of Justice to submit all filings that were presented in his immigration case in Louisiana, where he is currently being held at an ICE detention center.
In federal court, Khalil's attorneys are challenging the legality of his detention and have sought his release on bail.
Khalil, who completed work on his masters degree from Columbia University in December, was active in pro-Palestine organizing on the school's campus last year. Another Palestinian green-card holder active in Columbia's student protest movement, Mohsen Mahdawai, was also recently arrested by federal immigration agents.
Abdalla was eight months pregnant when Khalil was detained. ICE denied Kahlil's request for a temporary furlough to be with his wife while she gave birth on April 21.
Keep ReadingShow Less
'We Have Been Working Against That': Trump and Johnson Dump Cold Water on Millionaire Tax Hike
"We fully expect Republicans to once again sacrifice everything and everyone at the altar of tax cuts for their ultra-wealthy benefactors at the expense of working people," said one progressive campaigner.
Apr 25, 2025
U.S. President Donald Trump indicated in an interview published Friday that he's unlikely to push congressional Republicans to include a tax hike on millionaires in their sprawling reconciliation bill, saying he doesn't "want it to be used against me politically."
Trump's comments to TIME magazine came a day after he told reporters in the Oval Office that raising the statutory income tax rate on people who earn more than $1 million a year would be "very disruptive, because a lot of the millionaires would leave the country." (The notion of millionaire tax flight, often cited by Republicans as a reason not to raise taxes on the rich, has been repeatedly debunked.)
In recent weeks, pro-Trump figures such as former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon and a small number of Republicans in Congress have floated the idea of slightly raising income taxes for millionaires, suggesting the move would help counter progressive attacks on Trump and his billionaire-stocked Cabinet as a manifestation of the United States' descent into oligarchy.
"This guts the AOC-Bernie 'oligarchy tour,'" Bannon toldThe Washington Post earlier this week. "Politically, it's game, set, match—it's a no-brainer. This would destroy the Democrats."
But Trump told TIME that he's concerned about political backlash stemming from any tax increase on millionaires, even as he acknowledged it "doesn't make that much of a difference" to the rich.
"I would be honored to pay more," said Trump, whose organization was convicted in 2022 of a long-running tax fraud scheme. "But I don't want to be in a position where we lose an election because I was generous."
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) toldFox News earlier this week that he "would not expect" a millionaire tax hike to wind up in the GOP reconciliation package, which is expected to extend the 2017 Trump-GOP tax breaks and enact an additional $1.5 trillion in tax cuts—paid for in part by slashing Medicaid, federal nutrition assistance, and other programs.
"We have been working against that idea," Johnson added. "I'm not in favor of raising the tax rates because our party is the group that stands against that traditionally."
"The real thing that's going on here is that Republicans are feeling the pressure of our messaging. They're cutting basic service programs like Medicaid and SNAP to give tax cuts to billionaires."
Proposals floated by Republican lawmakers and discussed in Trump's inner circle in recent days include allowing the top marginal tax rate to revert to 39.6%—the level prior to enactment of the 2017 tax cuts—next year and establishing a new top marginal rate of 40%, which would do nothing to tax mega-billionaires like Elon Musk, whose wealth is mostly stock that's only taxed when sold.
The millionaire tax hike proposals have drawn vocal opposition from big business, with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce—the nation's largest corporate lobbying group—joining a recent letter rejecting any proposed tax increase on millionaires.
David Kass, executive director of Americans for Tax Fairness, told Common Dreams in an interview Friday that "even if they did put something like this in" the final reconciliation package, "it's really important to remember that the bill would still be overwhelmingly skewed to the rich."
"The real thing that's going on here is that Republicans are feeling the pressure of our messaging," said Kass. "They're cutting basic service programs like Medicaid and SNAP to give tax cuts to billionaires."
Morris Pearl, chair of the Patriotic Millionaires, told Common Dreams in an emailed statement that "while we are supportive of efforts to raise the income tax rate on millionaires, if past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior, we'll believe Republicans are serious about protecting working people from an unfair tax burden when we see it."
"As they prepare their bill for an early summer passage," said Pearl, "we fully expect Republicans to once again sacrifice everything and everyone at the altar of tax cuts for their ultra-wealthy benefactors at the expense of working people."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular