Like all the Republican Presidential hopefuls, Rick Santorum is trying to distinguish himself from the pack, mainly by portraying himself as the one Republican who cares about Americans who work for a living. In the name of advancing himself as the working man’s Republican, Santorum is on a tour to hawk his book, Blue Collar Conservatives: Recommitting To An America That Works.
Santorum does distinguish himself as one of the few Republicans who favors increasing the minimum wage, as long as it isn’t the living wage proposed by Barack Obama and presumably as long as it doesn’t help “blah people.”
But he is your average Teabagger when it comes to denying women’s reproductive freedom under the ideological premise that it violates his first amendment right to religious freedom.
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During a Q&A at one of his book hawking sessions, Rick Santorum told his audience that he still opposes contraception but he wants the government to pay for it and give it out to whoever wants it so that he won’t have to bow to Caesar.
It would be less objectionable to me for the government to go out and say we’re going to pay for all the pharmacies to stock contraception and give them out free. Am I paying for it indirectly? Yes, through my taxes, but I pay for a lot of things with my taxes that I don’t like.
Santorum builds on his very special way of thinking by noting that the difference between paying for contraception indirectly with taxes and paying for it indirectly through healthcare premiums is the latter is bowing to Caesar.
See for yourself in the video courtesy of Right Wing Watch.
Ok, let’s take that trip down the rabbit hole of Santorum’s mind. He is “pro-life” which means he opposes abortion in all circumstances and he opposes contraception. He opposes the Affordable Care Act because according to Santorum, insurance companies should be able to deny people with pre-existing conditions access to insurance and therefore access to healthcare. At the same time, he opposed the ACA because he believed it would ration health care dollars to the “most productive” members of society; therefore denying people with pre-existing conditions access to healthcare. With views like that it really isn’t surprising that Santorum believes that paying for contraceptives with a pool of tax dollars is okay but paying for contraceptives with a pool of healthcare premiums is bowing to Caesar.
This is Rick Santorum which means his arguments aren’t supposed to make sense.
Image; The Guardian
Former contributor.
