McKinley Votes to Keep Government Operating, Vows to Continue Fight Against Taxpayer Funding for Planned Parenthood

Statement

Today the House voted overwhelmingly to avoid a shutdown and ensure there is no disruption in services or benefits for seniors, veterans, and the military.

The funding bill will keep the government open through the middle of December and give the House and Senate more time to come to a long-term budget agreement.

"Like many others I am appalled at the troubling practices by Planned Parenthood that came to light recently," said McKinley. "I fully support blocking taxpayer support for an organization that exhibits such a callous disregard for life. However, using this funding bill as a means to defund Planned Parenthood -- and risk shutting down the government -- was not a good idea.

"Too often people confuse principles and tactics. Stopping taxpayer funding for Planned Parenthood is the right thing to do. The question is how do we achieve that goal?" McKinley asked.

"We had several tools at our disposal to address this issue, including the short term funding bill," said McKinley. "Rather than shutting government down over a bill that only touches a small portion of Planned Parenthood's funding, it's more effective to use other tools at our disposal. This includes legislation passed by the House recently that would stop all funding to the organization, committee investigations, and the budget reconciliation process the House and Senate will be using in the coming weeks to put this issue on President Obama's desk."

"Passing this bill will allow government to continue operating while the House continues to fight taxpayer funding for Planned Parenthood's shocking practices on other fronts," said McKinley.

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