How to End the War on Women

Whether you are a two or 92 year old woman (or somewhere in between), the Republican Party has declared war on you. From the moment that the extremist Tea Partiers took over the House of Representatives, the idea of any help for women and families became an obscene notion. It seems like the pure existence of women—powerful women, poor women, elderly women, toddlers and so on are bothersome to these men.

So, we have to ask what the heck is going on? We have a Senate and President of one party with the House of Representatives being run by a small fraction of the Republican party—the Tea Party faction.

When I think about factions, I think back to Federalist #10. If you haven’t had the opportunity to read this one, you should sit down and not only read it but also think about it—absorb it.

This faction has taken over the Republican Party. As I see it in that party, if you aren’t a tea partier, you are bending to their will because you are scared of a political challenge from your right. Either way, you now are the Republican Tea Party.

This party is playing chicken and acting like children when playing with the debt ceiling—which is really the American and thus world economy. Should the debt ceiling not be increased, massive (and I cannot underline massive as much as its needed here) cuts and changes to lives of millions of people—in particular women and children—will happen.

What’s most infuriating about this is that many of the Republican Congressmen leading the charge for budget cuts never said a word when President Bush was running up a deficit. But, the moment a Democratic President takes office and is trying to right the ship left in the high seas of disaster for him, they cry foul.

Beyond that, and back to their war on women, they want to cut Medicaid-in which a majority of recipients are low-income elderly women; funding for food and assistance for low-income expecting mothers and parents, children and babies; redefine rape; end all support for low-income preschoolers to attend Head Start; challenge Roe v. Wade and end all choice; and end funding for family planning. The list doesn’t end there but you get the drift.

To go full circle, I bring you back to Federalist #10:

“If a faction consists of less than a majority, relief is supplied by the republican principle, which enables the majority to defeat its sinister views by regular vote. It may clog the administration, it may convulse the society; but it will be unable to execute and mask its violence under the forms of the Constitution.”

We can stop this war on women, children and family by VOTING. That is what the founders had in mind. Women didn’t get out and vote in 2010 and it resulted in what we have now. We cannot allow this dysfunction to continue.

Even more so, we need more women in office. If more women were at the table in Washington and in Springfield, there would be less dysfunction and more focus on what matters to everyday families. Women elected officials are some of the most effective leaders in Congress, in Illinois and across the country.

Make your voice heard. Vote. Run for office. And, support other women running for office. We are our solution to this war on women.

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