President-elect Donald Trump announced this morning that he will nominate Republican Rep. Tom Price of Georgia to be secretary of health and human services. Along with his fierce opposition to the Affordable Care Act, Price has an atrocious record on reproductive rights and LGBT equality.
In fact, Price once said that he would support requiring legislators to study the fiscal impact of any bill advancing LGBT or reproductive rights because the “consequences of activity that has been seen as outside the norm are real and must be explored completely and in their entirety prior to moving forward with any social legislation that would alter things.”
Speaking on a Tea Party conference call in 2013, Price took a question from Rabbi Noson Leiter, who asked him, “Is it feasible to ensure that any legislation on the various moral issues that’s being considered, whether it be pertaining to the homosexual agenda or abortion or pornography, take into account the fiscal impact of that legislation? In other words, when they want to, let’s say, promote some homosexual agenda item that they should take into account the tremendous medical, health impact and economic impact that promoting such a lifestyle would result in.”
“Thank you, Rabbi, and you’re absolutely right,” Price responded. “The consequences of activity that has been seen as outside the norm are real and must be explored completely and in their entirety prior to moving forward with any social legislation that would alter things. I’m always struck by people who wake up one morning and think they have a grand new way of doing something, whereas you all know that the tried and true traditions and history that, again, made us great are preserved and have survived because they are effective and successful. I hear you, medical help and costs, you talk about a huge cost driver to state pensions and other things. Many of these areas would significantly alter state balance sheets.”
