GOP to Planned Parenthood: Mind Your Loan Business

by Tony Perkins: There are lots of ways to describe a business with $2 billion dollars in assets -- but "charity" isn't one of them. And yet, that's how Democrats must see Planned Parenthood, the "nonprofit" that just took in its biggest taxpayer-funded haul in history: $618 million dollars. Now, as if that weren't enough, they've stuck out their hand for more -- trying to cash in on the pandemic relief that clearly meant for small businesses. Well, Planned Parenthood isn't "small" and isn't eligible. And if the country's abortion tycoon doesn't give the money back, Senate Republicans want the government to come and take it.

The Paycheck Protection loans were supposed to be for hurting mom and pops -- not abortion tycoons trying to stop people from being moms and pops. And Planned Parenthood knew it. When they swindled $80 million dollars out of the small business pool in 2020, they knew the rules. The government specifically excluded big businesses, Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) pointed out. For a company with 16,000 employees to say otherwise, Republicans have said, is fraud. They not only cheated taxpayers out of the money -- they poached it from desperate employers who need these loans to stay afloat.

Of course, the other outrage is that Planned Parenthood didn't need the loans, because guess what? They were still operating! Even in states where governors explicitly told them to stop, they went ahead performing abortions anyway -- cramming women into unsafe waiting rooms and openly defying states' orders. While everyone else was taking a hit to their bottom line because of the lockdown, their cash registers didn't stop ringing. In fact, some affiliates bragged they'd never been busier!

For months, Republicans have been holding the Small Business Administration's (SBA) feet to the fire, demanding that they get those dollars back. Maybe there was confusion in the mad dash for cash last April, but there's no confusion now. So why is the SBA still forking over millions to Planned Parenthood? Good question, Paul says. And yet, "one more affiliate was approved for a second PPP loan while conservatives were leading the call for an investigation!"

"The Trump administration saw that they lied," Paul explains. "They knew they got the money illegally... So they made they made a ruling... on what affiliates are and who controls them. And so the Trump administration said, 'Send the money back.' A few of the Planned Parenthoods did send some money back, but most of them kept the money." Now, with the commander-in-abortion Joe Biden in charge, the SBA is even more indifferent. When officials came before the Small Business Committee where Paul is the ranking Republican, he said they asked them: "Look, we've seen the data, and we know that you're giving second loans to Planned Parenthood after you already told them it was illegal. Why aren't you pushing to get all of the money back -- and why in the world would you be giving second loans to entities that you knew were getting it illegally?" "They professed not to understand," Paul said.

That was even more infuriating, the senator explained, because these same officials had bragged in their testimony about how they were surveilling and catching ineligible businesses. And that's when Paul asked the administrator directly: "'Have you changed the policy? Have you changed the Trump policy and are Planned Parenthood affiliates now able to get this money?' He said, 'No, we haven't changed the policy.' ... So we immediately sent a letter to the Department of Justice, to the inspector general for the Small Business Administration and to the Small Business Administration itself [demanding an investigation]."

At the end of the day, these are Biden officials. "And, as you know," Paul said, Planned Parenthood dictates the politics of the Left and dictates the politics of the Democrat Party. And I think that they're going to keep giving them money, even though it is overtly against the law. But," he warned, "they also know now that I'm going to be dogged in pursuing this, and we're not going to let go." There's a chance the inspector general will take this seriously, Paul told listeners. "If there's anything that's pretty close to independent in the federal government -- an independent watchdog -- it's the inspector general. So we're going to keep pushing it on all fronts... If they're breaking the law, we want them to stop."

He's right. Planned Parenthood doesn't need a bailout. It needs a blackout of taxpayer funds!
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Tony Perkins (@tperkins) is President of the Family Research Council . Article on Tony Perkins' Washington Update and written with the aid of FRC senior writers.

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