Tuesday at a hearing of the House Oversight Committee, chairmen Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) questioned Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards over her organization spending over $40 million in federal dollars on travel, parties and excessive salaries.
Chaffetz said, “Does Planned Parenthood really need federal subsidy? Does it need federal dollars? Every time we spend a federal dollar, what we’re doing is pulling money out of somebody’s pocket and we’re giving it to somebody else. What I don’t like, what I don’t want to tolerate, what I don’t want to become numb to is wasting those taxpayer dollars. And as best I can tell, we’re going to have a hearing here, this is an organization that doesn’t need federal subsidy. For the year ended June 14th — June of 2014, I should say, Planned Parenthood reported $127 million in revenue over expense expenses. They had $127 million more in revenue than they had in expenses. Yet between 2005 and 2013, in large part under Ms. Richards’ leadership, there was a 53% reduction in cancer screenings. 42% reduction in breast exams and breast care. I don’t understand why. I don’t understand why.”
He continued, “Let me give you a sense of the numbers that we’re talking about here. government dollars from taxpayers going to Planned Parenthood is roughly $528 million. $450 million of that comes in federal funds. roughly $390 million comes in the form of Medicaid. There has been a lot of bluster today about shutting down the government over Planned Parenthood. The funding amount that we’re talking about under title 10 is $60 million. I just told you that last year — last year they had more than 100 million, $100 million in revenue without expenses. and we’re talking about $60 million. roughly 4.6 of their total revenue.”
“Planned Parenthood is an organization with massive salaries. Ms. Richards makes nearly $600,000 a year. The person that runs the affiliates makes roughly $450,000 a year. I could be here for a long time listing out salaries. This is also an organization that seems to have exorbitant travel expenses. they spend more than $5 million in travel, first class tickets, private chartered aircraft. Roughly, they are spending $14,000 a day on travel. That’s a lot. That’s money that isn’t going to women’s healthcare. in 2012 and 2013, spent roughly 600 thousand dollars on blowout parties, chocolate champagne events and Salt and Pepper came and performed a concert. All kinds of celebrities and other hoopla, these are things they lost money doing, according to their tax record. in the past three years, they spent more than $67 million on fund-raising. they’re pretty good at it. That’s partly my point. they’re pretty good at fund-raising. they don’t necessarily need taxpayer dollars,” he added.
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
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