GOP presidential candidate John McCain sounded more like a Democrat presidential candidate (a recurring trend) when he joined the Left’s oil industry-bashers a few weeks ago. Asked by a North Carolina voter whether he supported a Jimmy Carter-era windfall profits tax, McCain responded: “Um, I don’t like obscene profits being made anywhere–and I’d be glad to look not just at the windfall profits tax–that’s not what bothers me–but we should look at any incentives that we are giving to people or industries or corporations that are distorting the market.”
Here’s an idea for all the hand-wringing GOP strategists in Washington wondering what it will take to win back disgusted economic and social conservatives: How about a Republican presidential candidate who will talk about the tax-subsidized abortion industry the way McCain talks about oil industry?
In April, the annual report of Planned Parenthood Federation of America revealed that the abortion giant had a total income of $1.02 billion—with reported profits of nearly $115 million. Taxpayers kick in more than $336 million worth of government grants and contracts at both the state and federal levels. That’s a third of Planned Parenthood’s budget.
And what market-distorting results do we get for those government incentives? 289,650 abortions in 2006.
Read the whole thing.