Let's Cut Some Spending: Taxes to pay for travel for military members to get abortions

Remember the absolutely critical Omnibus spending bill Congress muscled through at the end of last year? It was 4,000 pages that no one read and cost taxpayers $1.7 trillion.

In our Let's Cut Some Spending series, ForAmerica will chronicle parts of the 2021 and 2022 spending bills from a variety of sources that you probably don't know about - programs, grants and spending of all kinds that should have never happened in the first place and many that are still happening.

Today’s offering: Taxes to pay for travel for military members to get abortions.

Kevin Roberts writes at USA Today:

Last fall, President Joe Biden issued an urgent order to the Pentagon. It wasn’t a strategic response to the war raging in Europe or the new Cold War heating up across the Pacific. Instead, he had Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin create special employment benefits (paid leave and travel reimbursements) to help military employees pay for abortions.

The response this outrage elicited on Capitol Hill was not surprising. Despite decades of bipartisan consensus against taxpayer funding of abortions, most congressional Republicans sent out news releases or tweets of disapproval, but without a plan to do anything about it.

Enter Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala.

Last year, Tuberville pledged that if Austin followed through on the president’s plan, he would use his leverage to block approval of Defense Department nominations as a group. (Democrats are still able to process them individually in the Senate.)

Austin ignored the warning. And this spring, Tuberville followed through on his pledge. He has objected to Senate consideration of all military flag and general officer promotions ever since.

On Monday, Biden described Tuberville's actions as "bizarre." Austin has said that Tuberville's stand is "irresponsible."

Not only is this shameful on its face, Roberts notes that taxpayer dollars going towards traveling for abortions in the military violates the Hyde Amendment.

"The Defense Department's new abortion policy is patently illegal," Roberts wrote. "Congress has never authorized special travel reimbursement benefits or paid leave for military personnel’s abortions. It flies in the face of the Hyde Amendment, which has prohibited taxpayer funding of most abortions since 1977."

Bottom line: Our tax dollars should not be going toward anything that involves or facilitates abortion.