I am disgusted by the amount of energy that is being wasted by people who pretend to take Eric Cantor seriously. He has this stupid bill called the Kids First Research Act. It would “end taxpayer funding of presidential campaigns and party conventions and divert that money instead to the National Institutes of Health to fund pediatric research.” It’s typical for conservatives to tie new funding for pediatric research to the destruction of any sense of civic duty to support our electoral system.
Why is Cantor doing this? Because research shows that people don’t respond to his party’s all-austerity-all-the-time message. They’d rather come down with hepatitis B than listen to Eric Cantor drone on about government spending. So, he’s pushing some bills that might almost seem compassionate (it’s for the kids!) and then he can accuse the Democrats who oppose them of preferring campaigning to helping the sick little children.
What an asshole, right? You probably won’t be surprised that the article details Cantor’s difficulties in lining up support for the sick little children. Turns out, most Republicans just want to take the money they save from making our elections 100% corporate-sponsored affairs and give it to rich people.
So, you know, they’re talking to the Democrats. And some Democrats are so desperate to see the House authorize a nickel or two to any kind of non-abstinence related research that they’re actually ready to gut public spending on elections.
The thing is, this bill isn’t going anywhere. The president wouldn’t sign it even if it passed the Senate. It’s all a joke. Cantor is trying to prove that his party can appear concerned about childhood disease and he’s discovering that they can’t. They can’t even fake it.