Jobs A Priority? Not To House GOP: See HR 3

H.R. 3, just passed by the Republan-dominated House with the assistance of 16 Democrats, is a draconian anti-abortion bill. It goes so far as to penalize businesses (by eliminating their tax credits) for offering employees insurance that covers abortion... even when the insurance is paid for with private money. Now there's a "conservative" maxim for business owners: "you can't spend your own money on a legal procedure, indeed, a constitutionally protected right, if we disapprove of the procedure." The bill also redefines rape in a way that requires a woman to prove she was forcibly raped before allowing her an abortion... now that's just what society has always wanted, a way to force a woman to bear her rapist's baby. [/snark] I've always said today's GOP has a cruel, dictatorial streak running right through it.

Once again, for the record, though I have grown tired of saying it: the Hyde Amendment, attached as a rider to a succession of funding bills since 1976, already prevents federal funds from being used for abortion. Although that amendment slashes access to abortion for poor women by removing it from Medicaid coverage, that's not the issue here. This bill goes much further than that: now the GOPers want to place the same restriction on the use of private funds. It seems to me that is mighty close to burdening a woman's right to an abortion as established in Roe.

Reportedly this bill has zero chance of making it into law. That's presuming the Senate does what it says, or Obama actually keeps a promise and vetoes it. But the fact that this is the third bill introduced in the GOP-controlled House shows just how much the GOP cares about dealing with unemployment, declining wages, home foreclosures, rising prices of every damned thing, etc.

Welcome to the Republan brave new world, where radical social-conservative measures displace basic bread-and-butter issues at the top of the priority list. Are those your priorities? No? Remember that fact in November 2012.