On the recordNovember 30, 2016
Mr. President, I am delighted to join my colleagues from Massachusetts and Illinois to express strong objections to the 21st Century Cures Act, a bill that is being considered in the House today and will be considered in the Senate. This bill proceeds to make effective $6.3 billion in cuts to programs while laying out a vision of what might possibly be spent in the future to assist in medical research. This is very much an imbalance. Real cuts--and as I will point out, those cuts hit things that matter with a promise of some of future possible action. We have seen these promises made and broken time and time and time again in this Chamber. If you are going to make a real commitment, then why isn't the real commitment in this bill? I ask my colleagues from across the aisle: Why isn't the real commitment to these programs in this bill? Why isn't the spending in this bill? Why isn't the spending on precision medicine that is promised to be considered in the future in this bill? Why isn't the funding for the Cancer Moonshot promised to be considered at some point in the future actually in this bill? Why isn't the program to help address an understanding of and pursue cures for Alzheimer's, which is actually just a promise to be considered in the future--why isn't that actually in this bill? Why isn't the work promised to be considered in the future for adult stem cell research, which could have application to multiple cures and multiple diseases, actually in this bill?…
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