The Budget

Floor Speech

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Mr. President, it is possible this week that we will pass a budget agreement for the fiscal year we are currently in. That year started October 1 and runs, of course, until the end of December in the next calendar year. If we do reach that agreement--and I hope we do--it is going to give us some opportunities. One opportunity it will give us is to spare ourselves the possibility of this Congress failing to enact a new budget ceiling to basically guarantee the full faith and credit of the United States of America. We won't face that showdown. Also, the possibility of a government shutdown will be relieved by the passage of this budget agreement.

Those are good, positive things for this institution and for the economy of America, but there are specifics that also need to be noted because this budget agreement gives us a chance to invest in areas of our budget that sadly would have been overlooked if we hadn't reached this agreement.

This morning we had an extraordinary presentation by the National Institutes of Health. Twenty Senators came to hear the presentation about research at the National Institutes of Health and what it means to us. Dr. Francis Collins is the Director and is an extraordinary man. He is a medical doctor who was given the task of mapping the human genome and did it. He did it in an extraordinary way, creating new information and new opportunities.

A doctor from the Mayo Clinic explained what that meant. It meant that we have now reached a point where we can map the genome of individuals, their DNA, and we can then make decisions on the appropriate prescriptions for illnesses and diseases they face and in doing that, be more effective, save lives. That is what medical research can mean. Each of us will not only have a basic biography in our medical record--when we were born and some of the basic illnesses we have faced--but also our individual map of our DNA, which will instruct doctors when it comes to treatment of cancer, if it should strike us, or some other disease.

It is an amazing leap forward. It is a leap forward that would not be possible without medical research. Yet, in the past 12 years, we have seen a downturn in investment in medical research of more than 20 percent--more than 20 percent. It has meant that a lot of researchers have been discouraged and walked away and said there is no future in medical research. What a loss. They don't make a lot of money--many of them don't.

If they don't think we are going to support them with our investment in NIH and medical research, they look in other places.

This morning we considered where we are. At this moment in time, the Senate, under the leadership of Senator Blunt of Missouri and the Appropriations subcommittee on health and human services, has provided basically a 7-percent increase in the funding for the National Institutes of Health next year. That is a good thing.

I will say quickly that Senator Blunt cut a lot of other areas in his bill that I think need to have help, but I hope that he will stand tall and tough when it comes to that 7-percent increase as we approach this budget negotiation. The House, conversely, did not give such an increase to NIH, but they increased the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which is a companion sister agency that is important for medical research.

We have a chance to come together on a bipartisan basis and come up with a number that gives 5-percent real growth in spending at both the National Institutes of Health and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It will pay us back many times over.

Most Americans say: What are we going to do about the cost of Medicare? Medicare is an important program to over 40 million Americans, and the costs keep going up. There are two facts that we learned about this morning and people should be aware of them: $1 out of every $5 spent under our Medicare system is spent on Alzheimer's and dementia. If we could have a means of early detection, prevention, treatment or cure for these horrible diseases, that would dramatically change the lives of millions of Americans and millions of families, and it would dramatically reduce the cost to Medicare and Medicaid.

Medicare spends $1 out of $3 for the treatment of people with diabetes. If we put the research into finding a cure for diabetes and can alleviate the suffering associated with that disease, it not only will help lives across America, but it will save us money in our important health care programs. Investment in medical research by the United States of America has been the pillar for the world when it comes to looking to a better day for the people who live in each country.

This brain initiative, which was described to us this morning by the National Institutes of Health, needs to be funded. It is not adequately funded now. We dedicated some $350 million to Alzheimer's and brain research. It sounds like a lot of money. It is about one-third of what the researchers need. They have that many opportunities waiting to be funded. Will they all succeed? No, but that is the nature of research, and each one of them will be a good investment which will lead us to the day of prevention, treatment, and a cure when it comes to Alzheimer's.

I hope that we come together on a bipartisan basis when it comes to this budget. In this area of medical research, there is plenty of room for us to work together, and there has already been leadership shown on the other side of the aisle. We are going to help to try to move that forward, both in the Senate and in the House, on a bipartisan basis.

When I meet with people across my State--and I guess many other States--and talk about political issues, there are a lot of folks with some very strongly held opinions on one side or the other, but when it comes to funding medical research, I have found that this is the kind of issue that opens the doors. People of all political stripes agree this is a good investment for the future of America.

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