The Republican presidential race for the White House is moving to Missouri this weekend, so Mitt Romney stopped in Kirkwood today, hoping to drum up some support in this Saturday's caucus following last month's humiliating loss to Rick Santorum in the non-binding primary.
During an interview with Ann Rubin on KSDK-TV in Kirkwood today, Romney was asked about how he would reduce the debt.
"The test is pretty simple," he said. "Is the program so critical, it's worth borrowing money from China to pay for it? And on that basis, of course, you get rid of Obamacare, that's the easy one. Planned Parenthood, we're going to get rid of that. The subsidy for Amtrak, I'd eliminate that. The National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities."
Did you see (hear) that? Planned Parenthood is the second thing to cut on his list.
Women and men who support Planned Parenthood are already tweeting in protest, many (sarcastically) wondering if that's his latest plan for women's health and/or to slow the plummeting female support for the GOP.
And talk about a weak plan to reduce the deficit. Planned Parenthood’s government funding comes to about $363 million. The federal deficit for fiscal 2012 is estimated to be at $1.2 trillion. Gee Mitt, only 1.199 trillion to go and you've balanced the budget!
Oh right, Obamacare. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office states that repealing the health care law would worsen the federal deficit over the next 10 years by $230 billion. OK, scratch that.
Now he's down to cutting Amtrak (about $1.4 billion), the National Endowment for the Arts ($144.7 million) and the National Endowment for the Humanities ($154.69 million). That brings Mitt's cuts to $2.062 billion, which still leaves an annual deficit of just under $1 trillion.
Romney has presented a plan he says will reduce the deficit by $500 billion by 2016, but given the huge tax breaks he'd give to the wealthy, we don't think it has much credibility.
No, the only credible plan is from President Obama, which includes a tax hike on the 1% that Romney would not only protect, but reward with huge tax cuts.
By the way, in case you think pulling the plug on federal funding for Planned Parenthood may not help reduce the deficit, but would reduce abortions, keep this in mind: Planned Parenthood CANNOT use federal funds for abortions by law.