Congressional Republicans are ready to buck President Trump’s plan to slash the National Institutes of Health’s funding, complicating the president’s budget goals.
While several parts of the budget have raised concern among Republicans, Trump’s proposal to cut nearly 20 percent, or $5.8 billion, from NIH is a major concern for the GOP. The medical research agency has traditionally received bipartisan support, and Congress passed a bill late last year that gave it an additional $4.8 billion over the next five years.
Republicans in both the House and the Senate, including House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, have spoken out against the cuts and are aiming to stand up for the agency, much to the chagrin of the White House.
“I remain deeply concerned about proposed cuts to important domestic programs like the National Institutes of Health,” Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., told the Washington Examiner. “It’s penny-wise but pound-foolish.”
Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., also opposed the cuts.
“You don’t pretend to balance the budget by cutting life-saving biomedical research when the real cause of the federal debt is runaway entitlement spending,” said the chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. “For the last two years, Congress has significantly increased funding for biomedical research, and we should increase it again this next year.”
Upton and Alexander have a vested interest in the NIH budget cuts as both were major proponents of the 21st Century Cures Act, which boosted NIH funding by $4.8 billion over five years.
However, lawmakers are trying to thread a thin needle, as they don’t want to upset the new Republican president.
Upton’s statement started by saying that the budget “acknowledges our unsustainable national debt and does attempt to put us on the path to fiscal responsibility.” Trump’s budget blueprint slashes domestic programs to boost funding for the military in an effort to not increase the deficit.
Ryan said on “Fox News Sunday” that he was encouraged by the increase in defense spending because our military “has been hollowed out.”
But he made a point of defending NIH, saying it is unlikely the agency will see the full extent of Trump’s cuts. Congress controls federal spending, and a president’s budget rarely gets through word-for-word.
“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,” he said.
The $4.8 billion in extra funding in the cures law included $1.8 billion for former Vice President Joe Biden’s cancer moonshot, which aims to speed up cancer research by conducting 10 years worth of research in five years.
It also gave $1.5 billion to Obama’s precision medicine initiative to develop targeted gene therapies and $1.5 billion to the Brain Initiative to develop Alzheimer’s treatments.
The cures bill was a major coup for research groups and Democrats, who have been pushing for extra NIH funding after years of reduced funding. Democrats agreed to support the bill’s provisions to speed up federal approval of new drugs and devices in exchange for the extra NIH funding.
Technically, the budget cuts wouldn’t address the cures funding, as the money has already been given out. But the nearly 20 percent cut would target NIH’s base budget, much of which is used to fund research grants.
Research advocacy groups who pushed for the cures act are hoping Congress continues to support the agency.
“I think the budget was a disappointment, but it was not a setback,” said Eleanor Dehoney, vice president of policy and advocacy for the group Research America. “Congress will remain a champion for us.”
That doesn’t mean they aren’t concerned. While presidential budgets aren’t always adopted as is, they signal an administration’s spending priorities.
“There is no question we are extremely concerned that the Trump administration would propose such a shocking and terrible proposal,” said Jon Retzlaff, vice president of science policy and government affairs for the American Association for Cancer Research.
Retzlaff said he hopes to show the administration the benefits of NIH. Office of Budget and Management Director Mick Mulvaney has said that the cuts are meant to get the institute to cut waste.
“Predictable funding increases for the NIH is smart policy and is not only there to protect the health of our nation’s citizens, but also to spur economic growth and development,” Retzlaff said.
