Massive Cuts To Science And Medicine In Trump Budget
The budget proposed by United States President Donald Trump calls for massive cuts to spending on medical and scientific research, public health and disease-prevention programs, and health insurance for low-income Americans and their children. It has drawn intense criticism from many corners, including scientists, physicians and politicians from both the Democratic and Republican parties. The only good thing about this horror of a budget, according to one pundit, is that it will likely get eviscerated in Congress.
Under the proposed budget, formally delivered to Congress yesterday, the National Institutes of Health would see its annual budget shrink 18% from $31.8 billion to $26 billion. This includes cuts to the National Cancer Institute , National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute , and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases .
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would lose 17% of its budget, a cut of $1.2 billion. This news prompted former CDC Director Dr. Tom Frieden to and rebuke this assault on science that will devastate programs that protect Americans from many deadly conditions, including diabetes, heart attacks and strokes. He noted that the cuts would give the CDC its lowest budget in 20 years and lead to an increase in illness and deaths.
Deep cuts to science and medicine in Trump budget draw intense criticism.
Dismantling The Affordable Care Act
More than 27 million Americans, about 9 percent of the U.S. population, have no health insurance coverage. Despite a yearslong decline in the number of uninsured Americans following the passage of the Affordable Care Act , the Trump administrations effective elimination of the laws individual mandate, as well as other efforts to undermine comprehensive coverage, led to an increase in the uninsured rate for the first time in 10 years. At the same time, the administration has pushed to allow insurance companies to offer short-term plans with limited coverage, also known as junk plans. While these plans offer cheaper premiums, they provide limited benefits and few consumer protections enrollees could potentially have massive bills for COVID-19 treatment.
The Truth About Trump’s Tax Cuts By The Numbers Not By Biden: Andy Puzder
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden often talks about repealing President Trumps tax cuts for the wealthy, claiming in a recent town hall that about $1.3 trillion of the $2 trillion of the tax cuts went to the top 1/10th of 1 percent of earners. But did the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act disproportionally benefit high earners? Comparing the income tax data for 2017 with 2018, clearly demonstrates that it did not.
According to the nonpartisan Tax Foundation, the TCJA reduced effective tax rates for all income groups in 2018. Because we have a progressive tax system, high earners pay the highest rates and received the largest rate reductions. However, lowering rates for a group of taxpayers does not necessarily reduce their share of the tax burden.
Lets look at the TCJAs impact on the top one percent of taxpayers. In 2018, 1.6 million taxpayers reported earning $500,000 or more. While the amount all taxpayers owed the IRS in 2018 declined by $64 billion, the amount these high earners owed increased by $16 billion.
Their share of the tax burden also increased. They accounted for 22 percent of total income in 2018 but their share of total income taxes rose to 40 percent .
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So, as a result of the TCJA, high earners paid more taxes to the government, while everyone else paid less. They also paid a larger percentage of all taxes, while everyone else paid a smaller percentage.
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Budget Would Thwart Progress
A few medical groups on Monday quickly criticized Trump’s proposals.
“In a time where our nation continues to face significant public health challenges including 2019 novel coronavirus, climate change, gun violence and costly chronic diseases such as heart disease and cancer the administration should be investing more resources in better health, not cutting federal health budgets,” said Georges C. Benjamin, MD, executive director of the American Public Health Association, in a statement.
David J. Skorton, MD, chief executive and president of the Association of American Medical Colleges also urged increased investment in fighting disease.
“We must continue the bipartisan budget trajectory set forth by Congress over the last several years, not reverse course,” Skorton said in a statement.
Trump’s proposed cuts in medical research “would thwart scientific progress on strategies to prevent, diagnose, treat, and cure medical conditions that affect countless patients nationwide,” he said.
In total, the new 2021 appropriations for HHS would fall by $9.46 billion to $85.667 billion under Trump’s proposal. Appropriations, also called discretionary budget authority, represents the operating budgets for federal agencies. These are decided through annual spending bills.
Congress has separate sets of laws for handling payments the federal government makes through Medicare and Medicaid. These are known as mandatory spending.
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WASHINGTON — The Trump administration proposed Monday a fiscal year 2021 budget that includes some long- and short-term cuts to several healthcare agencies, including the National Institutes of Health, the CDC, Medicare, and Medicaid.
For example, at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services , the budget estimates $1.2 trillion in mandatory and discretionary outlays — a net increase of $47.6 billion above fiscal year 2020, according to the Department of Health and Human Service’s “Budget in Brief” document. In the longer term, “the budget proposes targeted savings of $1.6 trillion in CMS mandatory programs over the next decade.”
In the Medicare program, the administration notes that further building on the “market-based aspects” of the program will save approximately $756 billion over 10 years. In Medicaid, allowing more state innovation as well as increasing anti-fraud efforts will save $920 billion over 10 years, the document said. The proposal takes aim at states that expanded Medicaid, noting that “Since 2014, the Medicaid program has added more than 15 million new working-age, adult enrollees however, findings from the HHS Office of Inspector General and state audits indicate some states did not always determine Medicaid eligibility for the expansion population in accordance with federal and state requirements.”
Overall, the FDA would get a small budget increase in 2021 .
Other discretionary programs to see cuts under the proposal:
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The Acting Director Of The Omb Seemed Unperturbed When Asked About If It Was Wise To Cut The Cdc During A Pandemic
By Matthew Rozsa
Acting Director of the Office of Management and Budget Russ Vought presses the button that starts the machine that will print copies of US President Donald Trump’s proposed budget for the U.S. Government for the 2021 Fiscal Year are printed at the Government Publishing Office ahead of its release next week on February 6, 2020 in Washington, DC. Once released, the budget will be debated in Congress before it becomes official.
President Donald Trump’s budget director stood by proposed budget cuts to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention despite the ongoing outbreak of COVID-19, better known as the coronavirus.
Russ Vought, the acting director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, told Rep. Matt Cartwright, D-Pa., during a congressional hearing on Tuesday that the administration does not plan on amending its 2021 budget. That budget proposes reducing Health and Human Services funding by $9.5 billion, in the process cutting $1.2 billion from the CDC’s budget and eliminating $35 million from the Infection Diseases Rapid Response Reserve Fund.
Vought initially responded to Cartwright’s question by pointing to the $8.3 billion emergency supplemental package passed by Congress last week. That money would be spread out over many years, however, and had to be increased by Congress from the $2.5 billion initially required by the White House. It also does not impact the CDC’s long term spending priorities.
Trump Budget Chief Holds Firm On Cdc Cuts Amid Virus Outbreak
Russ Vought, the acting director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, on Tuesday doubled down on proposed cuts to health services and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention , despite the coronavirus outbreak.
Vought came under intense questioning from Rep. Matt CartwrightDonald TrumpGraham opposes short-term debt hike, warns against being ‘held hostage’ to filibuster44 percent of Republicans want Trump to run again in 2024: surveyMOREs 2021 budget request. It proposed cutting Health and Human Services funding by $9.5 billion, including a 15 percent cut of $1.2 billion to the CDC and a $35 million decrease to the Infectious Diseases Rapid Response Reserve Fund’s annual contribution.
The question I have is, are we prepared to fight pandemics if we cut from programs that are specifically designed to prepare for them, including the coronavirus? Cartwright asked.
Vought responded by saying Trump signed into law the $8.3 billion emergency supplemental package Congress approved last week.
That funding, a significant increase over the $2.5 billion emergency request the White House sent over, would be spread out over several years. The funding in question at the hearing was for next year’s spending. Cartwright pressed Vought as to whether he would amend the request.
Vought confirmed that the administration was sticking to its request.
If youre asking if Im sending up a budget amendment, no, Im not sending up a budget amendment, he said.
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Budget Cuts Have Made The Us Less Ready For Coronavirus
As coronavirus continues to spread, the Trump administration has and imposed quarantines and travel restrictions. However, over the past three years the administration has weakened the offices in charge of preparing for and preventing this kind of outbreak.
Two years ago, Microsoft founder and philanthropist Bill Gates warned that the world should be preparing for a pandemic in the same serious way it prepares for war. Gates, whose foundation has invested heavily in global health, suggested staging simulations, war games and preparedness exercises to simulate how diseases could spread and to identify the best response.
The Trump administration has done exactly the opposite: It has slashed funding for the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and its infectious disease research. For fiscal year 2020, Trump proposed cutting the CDC budget by US$1.3 billion, nearly 20% below the 2019 level.
As a specialist in budgeting, I recognize that there are many claims on public resources. But when it comes to public health, I believe it is vital to invest early in prevention. Starving the CDC of critical funding will make it far harder for the government to react quickly to a public health emergency.
As of Jan. 31, 2020, cases of 2019-nCoV had been confirmed in China and 25 other countries. CDC
CUTTING FUNDS AND STAFF
A CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER
Trump Budget Seeks Huge Cuts To Science And Medical Research Disease Prevention
President Trump’s 2018 budget request, delivered to Congress on Tuesday with the title A New Foundation for American Greatness, has roiled the medical and science community with a call for massive cuts in spending on scientific research, medical research, disease prevention programs and health insurance for children of the working poor.
The National Cancer Institute would be hit with a $1 billion cut compared to its 2017 budget. The National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute would see a $575 million cut, and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases would see a reduction of $838 million. The administration would cut the overall National Institutes of Health budget from $31.8 billion to $26 billion.
The National Science Foundation, which dispenses grants to a variety of scientific research endeavors, would be trimmed $776 million, an 11 percent cut. NSF had not been mentioned in the administration’s earlier budget outline, the so-called skinny budget, which was released in March.
The National Science Foundation last year used your taxpayer money to fund a climate change musical. Do you think thats a waste of your money? asked the director of Office of Management and Budget director, Mick Mulvaney, during a White House briefing on Tuesday.
Among key health-care changes:
What Trump’s budget cuts from the social safety net
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According to the CDC’s mission statement, the agency works to protect the country from health, safety and security threads, both in the U.S. and overseas. It does this by connecting both state and local health departments across the country to discover patterns of disease and respond when needed. During the flu season, for example, the CDC tallies the spread of the disease each week, updates fatality numbers nationwide, and reminds Americans of best health practices to stop the spread of the virus.
But that’s not all the CDC does. By monitoring health patterns and providing information, it also helps the public take responsibility for its own health. The agency often does this by listing the latest data on their website or hosting meetings on subjects such as climate change, which is increasingly being treated as a public health issue.
Us Underprepared For Coronavirus Due To Trump Cuts Say Health Experts
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US preparedness to deal with the threat of coronavirus has been hampered by the personnel and budget cuts made by the Trump administration over the past three years, according to health experts.
There is no one in the White House tasked specifically to oversee a coordinated government-wide response in the event of a pandemic, since the post of senior director for global health security and biothreats on the national security council was eliminated last May.
The office was established in 2016 after the outbreak of the Ebola virus in Africa demonstrated the US government was not set up to move with the speed and decisiveness necessary to react to a really lethal epidemic.
The White House global health czar was supposed to coordinate international, national, state and local organisations, public and private, to confront a global epidemic, backed by the direct authority of the president.
After he became national security adviser, John Bolton eliminated the office as part of an NSC reorganisation, as he did not see global health issues as a national security priority.
You have to at least now be anticipating and responsibly planning against a sort of pandemic level scenario reaching the US, Jeremy Konyndyk, who ran foreign disaster assistance in the Obama administration, said.
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