The Pie Gets Larger Not Smaller - Senate Subcommittee Give NIH Another Nice Boost in Funding

[Cort]

If the Senate Subcommittee is having it's way, for the third year in a row - the NIH is going to get another nice boost in funding.

While it doesn't mean that ME/CFS is going to get more money, it does mean that the pie just got a little bigger; i.e. they can't say they don't have extra funds available to devote to ME/CFS. The worries have been that given President Trump's proposed almost 25% cut in funding that the pie would get smaller. The Senate is definitely digging in. NIH funding, by the way is a bipartisan issue - both the Dems and the Republicans want it to rise.

Perhaps more importantly, though, Senate subcommittee also rejected President Trump's proposal to slash indirect payments to Universities which are critical to their maintaining their labs, doing research, etc. . That was a backdoor way to cut funding - which thankfully failed.

The big winners so far are Alzheimer's - which gets another huge boost for the second year in a row - and Brain Research. At the least the Brain Research increase may indirectly help us.

We'll see how it ends up. The House has proposed about a $1 billion increase - the two branches need to reconcile. However it ends up, it looks the NIH will get increased funding this year.

From Science - http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017...ters-excellence-program#.WbGXcocfSN8.facebook.

(I really miss being able to put things in quotes. I hope that can be added.) You can put things in quotes. That option is in the menu 3 to the right of the smilie icon.

A Senate subcommittee today approved a $2 billion raise, to $36.1 billion, for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the 2018 fiscal year that begins 1 October. That 6% raise is nearly twice what a House of Representatives panel has approved and contrasts with a 22% cut that President Donald Trump’s administration had proposed for the agency. To the relief of research universities, the Senate draft spending bill would also block a Trump proposal to slash NIH payments to cover the overhead costs of research.

Senator Roy Blunt (R–MO), chairperson of the Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Appropriations Subcommittee, noted that this is the third year in a row that the committee has voted to boost NIH’s budget by $2 billion, a figure that prevailed in final spending bills in 2016 and 2017. The corresponding House panel has approved a $1.1 billion increase for the agency in 2018.

 

[Mary]

I saw this yesterday - at first I thought the NIH budget had been increased by $2 billion and then saw it was a committee recommendation. But still - with the house approving $1 billion as well, I think there should be a good chance of some increase. And also with Trump cozying up to Democrats over the debt ceiling, there may be hope --

 

[heapsreal]

If a country keeps spending more than they have the roof will collapse in, then there will be no money for anything. Just have to look at Greece to see how well it worked for them spending more than they make.

Doesnt matter how important the project, eventually you wont have money for anything.

More money doesnt always make things better especially when it comes to government as it just increases beaurocracy and waste. One example is in australia they have increased spending on education yet numeracy and literacy standards continue to drop. Its obvious more money isnt the answer. Maybe they need to spend the money they have appropriately like on maths and english instead of wasting millions on primary school kids teaching them about gender studies. It wont do them any good if they cant read, write or add up. Many government projects where money is wasted.

 

[Londinium]

Now if only the NIH could update its 'spending by disease' table that is still stuck on 3rd July when it was forecasting a cut in expenditure. It would be good to get updated figures (albeit the CFS line might not be useful unless the update follows the Research Centre awards).

Just have to look at Greece to see how well it worked for them spending more than they make

Greece is more an example of what happens if you borrow too much in a currency over which you don't have seigniorage rights. Countries have borrowed far higher levels than Greece in their own currency without causing a crisis - e.g. post-war UK, current day Japan - as the worst that happens is a bout of inflation + financial repression.

wasting millions on primary school kids teaching them about gender studies

[Citation needed]

 

[heapsreal]

Citation needed

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/fed...s/news-story/3fb6e9433848413a4caf92cecca24a8a

Thats only in one state of australia. Even the name of the program was misleading.

 

[Forbin]

It's hard to imagine any economic theory that would defend the spending of $5 a year to investigate the solution to something that's costing you $51,000 a year.

For example, extrapolating our data to the U.S. population ages 18-59, CFS could account for as much as (or as little as) $14 billion in healthcare expenditures and $37 billion in lost productivity.
https://resource-allocation.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1478-7547-9-1