Send the message to the states: CUT ALL FEDERAL FUNDING for Texas

AUSTIN -- Earlier this week, the Obama Administration has given Texas until March 31, 2012 to restore at least $1.00 of the money that Washington gave to the state to Planned Parenthood.

You read that right.

All Texas has to do is give Planned Parenthood a minimum of $1.00 in funding to avoid losing ALL of their federal funding. So far, Rick Perry, the governor AND 2012 GOP candidate for president, has refused to even do that.

And thankfully, the Obama Administration has put the Lone Star State on notice.

The Obama Administrations ruling last week denying Texas of its slice of the federal funding is a significant victory for women and for health care.

The state of Texas has had more than enough time to obey federal law. They have blatantly refused to comply.

And that is when (and why) the Obama Administration has taken the step of defunding Texas. That will be effective on April 1, 2012.

And that's no April Fools' joke.

Texas and its misogynist allies in the Texas Alliance for Life are blaming the federal government for a problem that the state itself created.

But abortion opponents are throwing the blame right back at the federal government. “By threatening to cancel the Women's Health Program in Texas, the Obama Administration is showing it would sooner deny tens of millions of dollars of medical services to low-income women rather than allow the State of Texas to cut off tax funding to Planned Parenthood,” Joe Pojman, the executive director of Texas Alliance for Life, wrote in an email.

Well, we are throwing the blame right back at where it belongs: at the Lone Star State. Again, all it takes is one buck of the federal dollars given to Texas - that's 100 pennies - going to Planned Parenthood to diffuse this situation. That's it.

But the facts are as plain as day: The state of Texas and the Texas Alliance for Life would deny women vital health care services such as pap smears, breast cancer screenings and cervical cancer screenings rather than allow Planned Parenthood - which does each of the three aforementioned things with 46% of the state's low-income patients - get one dollar of the federal funding that they deserve.

Texas's arrogance and stubbornness has gone way to far. The Lone Star state has gotten way too big for its britches. It is time for the Obama Administration to cut off ALL federal funding for the state of Texas. Not on April 1, 2012. Now.