I have no issue with Laura Bush except one of her causes is breast cancer research which her husband cut by 50% as soon as he got into office.
Lying again, I see.
Bush did not cut breast cancer research funding by 50 percent.
In fact, over a billion dollars of the defense budget has been channeled into breast cancer research over the past decade:
cdmrp.army.mil
I pointed out to you awhile back that real annual nondefense spending in the U.S. is up over half a trillion dollars in the past 25 years while real annual defense spending is down slightly over that same period. That's a fact, and I posted you the numbers to support it. But there's another part of the story that shows that social spending has increased even more relative to defense spending in that period. Part of the "defense" budget gets spent on medical research.
cdmrp.army.mil
How much?
1992-1997: $598,300,000 (average of just under $100,000,000 per year)
1998: $135,000,000
1999: $135,000,000
2000: $175,000,000
2001: $175,000,000
2002: $150,000,000
2003: $150,000,000
cdmrp.army.mil
So the facts are not that he cut funding by 50 percent. The facts are this:
1. Bush "cut" this funding by rolling back a portion of the 30 percent increase that President Clinton had put into place just before leaving office.
2. Bush's funding level is significantly above the funding level for every single year from 1992 to 1999.
3. This money is social spending but it comes from the Defense Department budget, thereby making it appear that defense spending is higher than it really is relative to social spending.
There are other programs which the federal government uses to support medical research. These were not cut by 50 percent by Bush either. A March 5, 2001 Boston Globe article talked about Bush continuing a funding increase for the NIH that would result in a doubling of that institution's funds over a 5-year period, after the real funding support (in inflation adjusted dollars) since the 1970's had already tripled:
imdc.org
And then there is this: EVEN THE DEMOCRATS ADMIT THAT BUSH HAS INCREASED MEDICAL RESEARCH FUNDING, though for them it isn't enough:
NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH: Over the last five years, the NIH has received annual increases of roughly 15% as part of Congress’s commitment to increase science and medical research. This year, the Bush Administration proposes to slam on the brakes, proposing an increase of just 2.5 percent - not even enough to keep up with inflation. The Republican bill adopts the Administration’s proposal. Under this budget, NIH says it will be able to afford an increase of just two-tenths of one percent in the number of new and competing research grants (outside of the bio-defense area). That means there will be little room to fund new ideas and new avenues of inquiry, and only limited opportunity for young researchers to secure NIH support.
democraticwhip.house.gov
The Democrats bemoan that the 2.5 percent increase in medical research funding in this year's Bush budget, after several years of 15 percent increases, is not enough because it is not as much as the rate of inflation. Yet the rate of inflation is only a whisker above 2.5 percent. And the same Democrats are moaning about the budget deficit, yet they criticize the President for not continuing to increase something at 15 percent per year.
You are lying about the 50 percent budget cut for breast cancer research. Flat out lying. You can lob partisan insults back and forth with the RWE's of this thread all you want. But when you just make up stuff, expect to have the facts presented. |
