The Tea Party Republicans in Congress are playing with people's lives by threatening a government shutdown. Real lives are at stake.
If the Tea Party Republicans have their way, they'll shut down the government in order to end life-saving services such as those provided by Planned Parenthood. We all know that Planned Parenthood provides sexual and reproductive health services, but they also provide vaccines, diabetes and cholesterol screening and numerous other general health services. These programs are under threat because of the Republican budget attacks on services for working families.
Republican Members of Congress, such as Pennsylvania Representatives Joe Pitts, Lou Barletta and Jim Gerlach, and Senator Pat Toomey know this is not about the budget. It's about a radical social agenda the Tea Party wants to impose. We have to fight back -- against ideologically-driven budget cuts and against a government shutdown.
Our state can't afford a government shutdown. A shutdown will furlough tens of thousands of Pennsylvania workers. It will close parks, disrupt travel plans, and cripple tourism. It will delay environmental cleanups. It will stop new claims-processing for Social Security and Medicare. But none of this matters to the Tea Party Republicans.
See, they want to close the government -- they want to eliminate vital services like Veterans Affairs, the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control. But the Tea Partiers don't care how it will affect real people. They care only about getting their ideological cuts.
Enough is enough. Shutting down the government for ideology is beyond the pale even for these folks. We can't sit back and watch America crumble.
In Solidarity,
Michael Morrill
Keystone Progress
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