How do you locate $600 billion in order to give it away to rich folks via a tax break? Well, you just have to get rid of needless military expenditures (i.e. Ronald Reagan’s useless “star wars” missile defense program). But what if you want to increase that military budget? Oh, then you need to get rid of important things like food stamps and medical research.
The Trump administration could slash $5.8 billion from the 2018 budget of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), yet still fund as least as much research by eliminating overhead payments to universities and research institutions, Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Tom Price told lawmakers today.
The hearing, before the appropriations subcommittee in the U.S. House of Representatives that oversees the HHS budget, included several questions about the 18% cut to NIH’s $31.7 billion budget that President Donald Trump has proposed. (An addendum to that request also included a proposed cut of $1.2 billion in the current fiscal year.)
That’s a big cut. What does these proposed budget cuts mean?
- Take $350 million from the National Science Foundation's $6.9 billion budget
- Cut $37 million from the Department of Energy's $5.3 billion worth of science programs
- Excise $48 million from the Environmental Protection Agency's research and development budget of $483 million
- Cut in half the $101 million Teen Pregnancy Prevention program
- Reduce Food and Drug Administration staff spending by $40 million
- Cut domestic and global HIV/AIDS programs by $100 million plus cut the Presidential Emergency Program for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) $4.3 billion budget by $242 million
- Completely delete the $72 million Global Health Security fund at the State Department and cut other global health programs by $90 million and $62 million for global family planning
Well done, guys. You’re crippling the sciences and programs that help people across the country, and you’ve shaved off 0.966 percent of what you need to get rich people that tax break you promised.