Ryan: Expect changes to White House’s proposed budget cuts for NIH

“I will say that NIH is something that is particularly popular in Congress. We just passed the Cures Act just this last December to increase the spending in NIH because we really think we’re kind of getting close to some breakthrough discoveries on cancer and other diseases,” Ryan told Fox News anchor Chris Wallace. “That is something that I think in Congress you will see probably some changes.”

Former President Barack Obama in late December signed the Cures Act, biomedical legislation that gave $6.3 billion to medical research and aims to speed up the development of new drugs and devices over the coming decade, including $4.8 billion to NIH.

Ryan defended the recently proposed budget by the White House Office of Management and Budget, saying it increases funding for the military while cracking down on non-defense expenditures.

“We are encouraged that we are seeing an increase in defense because we think our military has been hollowed out, but with respect to any one of these types of programs, this is the beginning of a very long multi-stage process of budgeting and I do believe at the end of the day we will honor these priorities, in particular our defense spending priorities,” Ryan added.

However, Ryan added the legislative branch will go after other programs, aside from NIH, where funding can be cut. The decrease in government financing could open a vacuum for private entities to donate, giving them a higher tax write-off.

“I’m glad that the administration got going. I want financial pressure, I want spending caps, because that makes us focus on cutting spending that is wasteful spending. There are a lot of programs that are wasteful — that aren’t measuring up to the goals that they are supposed to achieve. If you want that kind of fiscal pressure, so you go after waste, you go after abuse. You go after programs that are succeeding their goals while we honor our priorities,” Ryan said.