Spotlight

FY12 Spending Debate Comes to a Close

Congress completed, and the President signed into law, the FY12 appropriations bill. The $915 billion spending bill wraps up the remaining nine appropriations measures. The bill provides funding for programs at the Department of Health and Human Services, including the National
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Rep. Rush Holt’s (D-NJ) Editorial in Most Recent Science

Science 16 September 2011:
Vol. 333 no. 6049 p. 1549
DOI: 10.1126/science.1211494
EDITORIAL:

Dueling Visions for Science

Rush Holt
Rush Holt is the U.S. Representative for New Jersey's 12th Congressional District and has a doctoral degree in physics.

A
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Talking Points You Can Use When Calling Your Representative - TODAY

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NIH talking points on the vote to override the President’s veto
on the FY 2008 Labor-HHS appropriations bill (H.R. 3043)
November 14, 20071

  • The bipartisan House-Senate conference agreement on the FY 2008 Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations Bill (H.R. 3043) provides $30 billion for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), an increase of $899 million (3.1 percent) over last year’s funding level. This represents the largest increase in the past five years.
  • If Congress fails to override the President’s veto of the bill, the alternative may well be the Administration’s FY 2008 budget request of $28.6 billion, which is nearly $1.4 billion below the bipartisan House-Senate conference agreement and nearly $480 million (1.7 percent) below the FY 2007 funding level.
  • According to the House Appropriations Committee, the President’s proposed cut in the NIH budget for FY 2008 would lead to about 800 fewer research grants than last year. The bipartisan House-Senate conference agreement would result in over 1,400 more research grants into life threatening diseases.
  • Since 2003, the NIH budget has failed to keep pace with biomedical inflation. The agency has lost $2.4 billion or nearly 9 percent of its purchasing power in just four years, which threatens to derail the momentum gained from the investments in discovery to this point. The bipartisan House-Senate conference agreement is a critical step toward stabilizing this investment.
  • At a time of unparalleled scientific opportunities and unprecedented health challenges, the NIH should be able to support more research, not less.
  • At a time of global competitiveness in scientific research, this nation should invest more resources into discovery, not fewer.

To find additional information on your Member of Congress, visit http://capwiz.com/jscpp/home/

1All talking points courtesy of AAMC