Lois Capps: “frankly, I am getting really tired of hearing proponents of this budget argue that drastic cuts to health care are a…”

“frankly, I am getting really tired of hearing proponents of this budget argue that drastic cuts to health care are a result of difficult choices. It is quite apparent that the choice being made is a simple one, further tax breaks for the wealthy instead of real investment into the health care needs of our Nation, the most urgent needs, as our colleague from South Dakota expressed, in her State, and also in mine, the most urgent need that our constituents want us to address in their time of need at home. At such a time of remarkable breakthroughs, for example, in medical research, it is appalling that this budget cuts 18 of the 19 institutes of the National Institutes of Health. Again, proponents of this budget will argue that in the late 1990s we doubled NIH's budget, and it is a good thing we did. But that just shows how little is understood about scientific research, how much they are minimizing our country's need for true investment. If this budget passes, the NIH will have 13 percent less funding than it did in 2003. That will mean that we will take giant steps backward in our efforts to eliminate cancer deaths by 2015, a doable goal if we were to stay on track with NIH. It means that our efforts will be hampered to combat the number one killer in this country, heart disease. It means that our ability to remain globally competitive in the development of new treatments is threatened.…”