The far-right Republicans in Congress are poised to shutdown the government again. And the issue they chose to force this shutdown over is the defunding of Planned Parenthood. These politicians know that no government money is used to fund abortions -- not at Planned Parenthood, or anywhere else. There is already a federal law to prevent that -- and the Republicans should know that, because they are the ones that passed that law.
But this is not about Planned Parenthood. It is a political game designed to appeal to the evangelicals and teabaggers in the GOP base. These far-right Republicans actually seem to think that most Republicans (and most Americans) like their position, and would be willing to endure another government shutdown to defund Planned Parenthood. They are wrong on both counts.
While their actions may please the evangelicals and teabaggers, it does not represent the position of most Republicans (or most religious people in this country). It turns out that 56% of Republicans oppose a shutdown over this issue, and even larger majorities of religious people oppose a shutdown (64% of protestants and 66% of catholics). And those majorities are also apparent with both sexes, all races, and all age groups.
The far-right Republicans are playing a dangerous game by trying to force a government shutdown -- a political game that could further damage their party on election day. Speaker of the House John Boehner is their best hope to avoid that. By resigning, he is now free to form a coalition of right-wing Republicans (who don't want a shutdown) and Democrats to take the Planned Parenthood defunding out of the budget bill. That coalition could probably pass that, and that amended budget bill could probably pass in the Senate.
Will Boehner step forward and get that done? We'll know very soon, because time is running out.
The chart above is from the Quinnipiac University Poll -- done between September 17th and 21st of a random national sample of 1,574 registered voters, and has a margin of error of 2.5 points.
