Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, I want to talk a minute about budget priorities. The First Lady, Hillary Rodham Clinton, recently--in a speech at the National Institutes of Health, in Bethesda--following, I think, very good advice by Secretary Donna Shalala, spoke about the National Institutes of Health being one of our national treasures. And, Mr. Chairman, it is fascinating to understand how biomedical research results in cost savings in health care. The amount of money saved by just one discovery, the discovery of the Salk polio vaccine, amounts to the entire funding cost of NIH throughout its history. What that means to health care cost savings in the future is almost incalculable. Yet last year the administration put out a budget that would have provided a 1 percent increase for NIH below inflation, resulting in actual cuts in 9 of the 17 Institutes. We on the Appropriations Committee and the Subcommittee on Labor-Health and Human Services- Education ended up raising that to 6 percent in the House and 5.2 percent in the final conference, all within the budget, because we considered NIH one of our true priorities. This year the President's budget puts NIH at an increase of $517 million or 4.7 percent. Even if we take out the forward funding, it is $417 million or 3.8 percent.”