Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I talked yesterday at some length on the budget. It is important. We are approaching 3 months where we have not been able to go to conference on this budget. This is so extremely important. I spent yesterday morning at the NIH. I was not able to meet with all the heads of the Institutes, but I met with four of them, plus Dr. Collins, who runs the NIH, the National Institutes of Health. I will have more to say about this later, but South Africa, England, France, India--China is increasing their spending by almost 25 percent for programs just like we have at NIH. What are we doing at NIH? We are cutting spending. They have been flat-funded since about 2004. With the stimulus bill, which is now going on 5 years ago, we gave them a shot in the arm because of Senator Specter. But that money has long since been gone. They are headed downhill, and they have been for several years now. These wonderful scientists we have there are leaving. One of the scientists from the University of Michigan, who, by the way, is best friends with my chief of staff, is basically staying away from NIH because you cannot have--and he is an expert, one of if not the leading expert in the world on melanoma. He is not making application for NIH grants anymore because they cannot do scientific research when it is only available for a year or two.…”