The Decline in U.S. Research

Floor Speech

Mr. GARAMENDI. Representative Speier, thank you so very much. It is good to be on the floor. I noticed thus far it has been Californians, but this is far more than California. I see Chicago, Illinois, just arrived, and we will pick up on that.

This is an issue that touches every single American. It is not a California issue. I represent northern California, not far from the Bay Area. The University of California/Davis campus is in my area. There are major, major programs in research, not just with the National Institutes of Health and the health issues that we are talking about here, but agriculture, energy research, and on and on.

It turns out that that powerful engine of research is found in every part of America. So listen out there, those of you that are watching. This is not just a California issue. This is an American issue, and it is an international issue because this particular National Institutes of Health is dealing with the health of this entire world. Every person in the world is, in one way or another, affected by the research done by the National Institutes of Health, the funding that they, then, provide to the 250 universities all around this Nation to deal with illnesses, to deal with the human body and beyond.

For example, Davis, which was originally known as an agricultural research institution and continues to do that, has discovered that, interestingly enough, with the mad cow issue, there is a virus that can be identified specifically with that illness so that for the cattle industry, if some cow goes a little weird, you can find out whether it has mad cow disease or it is just weird. And the very same thing applies to the human body. So this virus can be identified both in a cow--is it mad or not? Well, it may just be angry but not crazed--and in a human.
Dealing with a very, very serious human issue and also a serious economic issue for those of us in the cattle business. This is a big thing. And what has happened--I love charts.

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Mr. GARAMENDI. I noticed, Representative Speier, that you love charts too. So I borrowed this. I think you used it earlier today. This is instructive.

You were just talking with the Representative, our friend from San Diego, about the enormous increase that took place for the National Institutes of Health during the George W. Bush conservative period of time. It is right there, $21 billion; and then over the years, it began to lose a little bit of its, I guess, interest. And then, as we went into the late years of the George Bush administration, it dropped down there. And then, of course, the great crash. A little bump here, which I think is the stimulus bill, pushing more money into research at the National Institutes of Health. And then we have seen, beginning in 2010, what has got to be one of the stupidest policies this Nation has engaged in.

It happened to be in 2011, when the House changed from Democratic control to Republican control. We have seen a very steep decline--a $1.5 billion reduction and annual decline in the National Institutes of Health.

This same decline in the last 3 years is what is the result of the austerity budgets that have been imposed upon us by the Republicans trying to solve the national deficit by cutting Federal expenditures. The entire European community has come to the conclusion that doesn't work. Austerity budgeting does not increase economic growth. It has caused stagnation. Certainly, in Europe we are beginning to see, I think, a large part of the slow growth in the United States caused by austerity budgets.

But specifically to the health care of Americans--our health, our well-being--this is really serious. This means people are going to have additional illnesses. You spoke earlier about some of those, like diabetes. Diabetic research funding is cut through the National Institutes of Health.

This one I really find frightening. I find this frightening because this is very personal. My mother-in-law spent the last 2 years of her life with a very, very serious case of Alzheimer's disease. She died in a hospice program in our home. We, I suppose, were a very small part of this because we took care of her. But right now we are spending $200 billion a year dealing with Alzheimer's.

We know that the population is going to increase and the elderly population is going to skyrocket as the baby boomers move into their later years. By 2050, it will be $1.2 trillion for Alzheimer's.

Is there anybody in America, any family in America, that is not concerned about Alzheimer's? I don't know who they are. I know my family is concerned about it. Every family that I know--and I know many because I have been in public life for a long time and met perhaps thousands, or hundreds of thousands, of people--and every single one of them is concerned about Alzheimer's.

This is the financial side of it. The human side of it, I can tell you, is serious. I can tell you the effect it has.

Ms. SPEIER. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. GARAMENDI. I would.

Ms. SPEIER. To your point, this $1.2 trillion in the year 2050 is coming from all the taxpayers in this country. Because these are Medicare patients. These are Medicaid patients. What would be really stunning is to understand that if we were able to delay the onset or progression of Alzheimer's by 6 years, it could produce an annual savings of $51 billion in 2015, $126 billion in 2025, and a whopping $444 billion--almost half a trillion dollars--in the year 2050, when that cost is going to skyrocket to $1.2 trillion.

Mr. GARAMENDI. I am so glad you interrupted because that is an extremely important fact.

Let's go back and look at that. In 2015, the savings are how much?

Ms. SPEIER. They are $51 billion.

Mr. GARAMENDI. They are $51 billion. We are going through this budget exercise where, by the way, the sequestration cut continues, although the across-the-board is eliminated. Half of the sequestration cut will continue because of this budget, but we will be able to try to balance out the prioritization.

But the total savings in 2015 is less than the $50 billion that you have suggested could be saved if we could extend the onset and the severity of Alzheimer's. We watched this very closely in my family. The fact of the matter is that the National Institutes of Health's funding for Alzheimer's is coming to understand the nature of Alzheimer's and, therefore, how to deal with it.

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Mr. GARAMENDI. In the red, going down.

Ms. SPEIER. That is right: a cut of 5 percent. So another example of how China is going to eclipse us in more ways than one. And those young researchers that we have been talking about are going to be going to China to do their research.

Mr. GARAMENDI. If I might just add to that, it is my understanding--and I get this from the University of California-Davis--that they are losing their new Ph.D.s to other countries, particularly to China and to India, because those countries are not only increasing their total research but they are also providing these very bright, innovative, forward-thinking Ph.D.s with a full laboratory and all of the support that they might need to continue to conduct their research not only on the issue of health care but also in all of the sciences and technologies, from high technology, energy, and so forth.

So we really need to get on it.

My final point is here twofold. First of all, if we are going to build this economy, there are five things we have to do consistently through time. And they require public investment.

First of all, education. You have got to have the best educated workforce in the world.

Secondly, you have to have the best, most advanced research because that is where the future is. That is where the future economic growth will come from.

You need to make the things that come from that. You need to have the infrastructure, and you need to think globally. We are not doing that.

The budgets that have been put forth by our colleagues on the Republican side go exactly the other direction. They cut educational funding, beginning with early childhood education. They cut the funding for research. You see it here.

Tomorrow, we are going to take up the new budget. It continues to cut research across the board, the National Institutes of Health probably included. It goes on and on. Transportation, infrastructure--forget it, there is no money for it.

We have got to turn that around. These are the fundamental investments of economic growth and, more important, social justice.

Congresswoman Speier, thank you so much. You have been at this, beating this drum. Don't stop. You stay with this. This is a message that the American public has to understand. These are the investments about our own personal health, our children's health, and our future economic growth, as well as addressing worldwide problems.

Thank you so very much for what you are doing here and for loaning me your charts.

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