Women paying the bill

“I might submit that folks on the other side are trying to distract all of you,” as National Public Radio quoted Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., on April 8. “The bottom line is it’s about cuts. It’s about spending reductions.”

If it’s about reductions, Cathy wants to sacrifice women’s health and balance the budget on the backs of vulnerable women. She’s also trying to eliminate Medicaid, the last health care option for poor men, women and children, and repeal Obamacare so women can again be denied health care because of gender.

How does she reconcile these actions, being a woman herself? Maybe part of it is her wealth growing dramatically since entering Congress and having great health care herself.

But I really wish she’d be honest and say what this is mostly about: defunding an organization that she has a severe bias against because they provide a service to women with which she disagrees. She makes no secret of her unbending anti-choice view, and it looks ridiculous for her to deny a connection that is so clear.

For spending, look at the military. We led in 2009 spending with $698 billion; China was the distant second at $119 billion.

Sharon Smith

Spokane