Following the budget deal that forced Senate Democrats to hold a vote soon on revoking the taxpayer funding the Planned Parenthood abortion business receives, leading pro-life Rep. Mike Pence and its president Cecile Richards are sparring.

Democrats caved on the issue of abortion late Friday night despite facing enormous pressure from pro-abortion groups to hold the line on taxpayer funding of abortion and Planned Parenthood funding.

Republicans and Democrats agreed to a budget deal with less than two hours to spare before the federal government engaged in a partial shutdown. The deal restores language that prohibits federal taxpayer funding of abortions in the nation’s capital that President Barack Obama and Democrats removed in a previous budget. The deal also requires something Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid said he would never allow — a vote in the Senate on revoking funding for the Planned Parenthood abortion business...

In a new interview, Speaker John Boehner talked about the upcoming strategy behind the next steps in the battle to de-fund Planned Parenthood and he urged pro-life advocates to be patient.

The House of Representatives approved an amendment Congressman Mike Pence offered to the continuing resolution bill to keep the federal government running. The amendment ensures the Planned Parenthood abortion business and its affiliates are not eligible for any federal taxpayer dollars across any federal programs or departments.

Although the House voted on a strong margin to de-fund Planned Parenthood, the next steps are more tenuous. The battle to yank federal funding is complicated by the fact that Senate Leader Harry Reid and his pro-abortion Democratic colleagues control the Senate agenda and pro-abortion President Barack Obama occupies the White House.

Abortion providers are the targets of a trio of House bills that seek to ensure that taxpayer dollars will not find their way into such coffers.

“The time has come to deny any and all taxpayer funding for Planned Parenthood,” Rep. Mike Pence, Indiana Republican, said at a Feb. 10 press conference about his Title X Abortion Provider Prohibition Act.

A second pro-life bill blocks federal funds from paying for abortions, even indirectly, under the new health care law, and a third measure codifies the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits federal funding for abortions, into law...

During a terse debate in which abortion backers attacked pro-life lawmakers as wanting to threaten women’s rights and health — yet ignoring the ways in which the Planned Parenthood abortion business has exploited women — the House of Representatives considered an amendment to de-fund the abortion business.

The House did not ultimately take a vote but rolled a vote on the amendment to Friday.

Congressman Mike Pence of Indiana led the way in fighting for the amendment to ensure that none of the federal funds in any program or department would go to the abortion business, which does more than 324,000 abortions annually and receives more than $363 million in federal, state and local taxpayer funds...

Congressman Mike Pence is gaining more support for his bill to de-fund Planned Parenthood, but the head of the nation’s biggest abortion business is pushing back and defending it from criticism over videos showing its staff helping sex traffickers victimize young girls with abortions.

In a Friday morning interview with American Family Radio’s Financial Issues program, Pence said members of both parties are signing on to his bill to ensure the abortion business is not eligible for millions of dollars in family planning grants from the federal government.

“There are now more than 160 co-sponsors — Republicans and some Democrats — who are coming together to say that no more public funding will flow into Title X clinics,” he said. “I believe we’re reaching a point where we can end public funding for Planned Parenthood once and for all”....

(CNSNews.com) – Republican Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) opposes the tax rate and unemployment benefits deal negotiated between Republican lawmakers and the White House “as currently structured,” spokesman Wesley Denton told CNSNews.com. Senators Tom Coburn (R.-Okla.) and Jeff Sessions (R.-Ala.) are undecided on the deal.

“Senator DeMint does not support the deal as currently structured as it includes huge new deficit spending and death tax hikes on small businesses that would kill hundreds of thousands of jobs,” Denton said in an e-mail.

“While he is open to a temporary extension of all current tax rates without new deficit spending, he's also made clear that a temporary extension will not be a true stimulus to create the jobs our economy desperately needs,” said Denton. “He has introduced a bill with Congressman Mike Pence to make all tax rates permanent to create a stable, prosperous economy”...

Rep. Michele Bachmann has become a prominent national conservative figure as an articulate female spokeswoman for issues like abortion and her latest call demonstrates why.

Bachmann says she will press for the new Republican-controlled House of Representatives to pass a bill sponsored by fellow conservative luminary Mike Pence, an Indiana congressman, to de-fund Planned Parenthood when it convenes in January.

“Well, I think one thing that we can do, quite simply, is to withhold funding from Planned Parenthood,” Bachmann said when asked by CNS News about what Congress can do to protect unborn children...

(CNSNews.com) – Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) and Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.) renewed their call on Wednesday for making the current tax rates permanent before they automatically reset to 1990’s-era levels at year’s end.

DeMint and Pence highlighted legislation they introduced on Nov. 17, The Tax Relief Certainty Act, which would prevent income tax rates from resetting to the higher 1990’s-era levels, prevent the scheduled return of the estate tax, set capital gains tax rates at 15 percent, and permanently patch the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT).

Both conservative lawmakers noted that raising taxes on any American during a recession was bad economic policy...

(CNSNews.com) – In a letter sent to supporters by e-mail on the day after Republicans were swept in as the new majority in the House of Representatives and gained seats in the Senate, Planned Parenthood CEO Cecile Richards used the election results to press for an “emergency donation” to help fight against “dangerous politicians who oppose women's health and the right to choose.”

“Even before yesterday's election, women's health was under attack,” Richards wrote in the e-mail, which was sent on Nov. 3. “Anti-choice Republicans like Congressman Mike Pence from Indiana have introduced legislation to defund Planned Parenthood.”

“That's the frightening reality we face, and it's only going to get worse,” Richards wrote...

Washington (CNSNews.com) – Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.) says he is concerned about the prospect of health care rationing following the recess appointment of Dr. Donald Berwick to serve as the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicare Services.

Pence, speaking Tuesday at a Congressional Health Caucus event, said Berwick was “not entitled to that job” and should have had a confirmation hearing.

“I think an appointment of such magnitude, at a time of enormous public debate, as a recess appointment was wrong,” Pence told CNSNews.com. “I think it was wrong for the president to bypass the confirmation process at a time when the American people are so focused on legislation where the ink is barely dry...