As America celebrated 250 years of liberty, federal funding returned to the nation’s largest abortion provider.

For nearly a year, Planned Parenthood was barred from collecting hundreds of millions of dollars in federal Medicaid reimbursements.

Now the money is flowing again.

Last summer, Congress temporarily disqualified Planned Parenthood and certain other abortion providers from federal Medicaid funding. Planned Parenthood immediately sued, and a federal judge blocked the law. An appellate court later lifted the injunction, allowing the provision to take effect for most of the year.

But Congress built an expiration date into the law. In a bitter irony, on the 250th anniversary of our nation’s birth, taxpayer dollars began flowing once again to an organization responsible for ending hundreds of thousands of innocent lives each year.

Meanwhile, Planned Parenthood used the threat of defunding to flood supporters with emergency fundraising appeals, while abortion-friendly states rushed to replace its lost revenue. California alone committed more than $230 million to stabilize Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers.

Congress is now developing another budget reconciliation bill and still has an opportunity to make the defunding permanent. Taxpayers should not be forced to subsidize an organization that ends the lives of hundreds of thousands of unborn children every year.

This is not the time for another temporary measure—or another “victory” that quietly expires twelve months later.