Two decades ago, between 1998 and 2003, the budget of the National Institutes of Health was doubled. This was an extraordinary enterprise after the multi-year post-Cold War decline in defense spending and at a time when government agency budgets tended to be increased marginally or carried over from previous years.

It was a bipartisan project, put into effect by two Senate appropriators, Republican Arlen Specter and Democrat Tom Harkin, with the support of the Clinton and Bush administrations — and during years when, except for one 18-month interval, Republicans had majorities in both houses of Congress.