Our plan to have the House Budget Committee approve an amendment to increase the NIH budget failed. Our next chance to ensure the NIH budget is increased will occur on the House floor. If you have yet to contact your US Representative about supporting life-sciences research, please do so by visiting this site. The following comes from an email from the Genetics Society of America.
Your Voice Still Needs to Be Heard
The House Budget Committee voted down the amendment offered by Rep. Rosa DeLauro that would have increased health and education funding in the House Budget Resolution by $7 billion. All 22 Republicans voted no and the 14 Democrats present voted aye.
ACTION: It's time to focus all attention on all Members of the House of Representatives. Call or E-Mail Your US Representative! Ask your Member of Congress to support the NIH by increasing health and education funding in the House budget resolution. Ask them to support the efforts to include an additional $7 billion for health and education programs to the FY 2007 budget.
More below the fold...
Ask your representative to Support Rep. Michael Castle's (R-DE) plan to amend the budget resolution on the House Floor to include $7 billion the Senate added for health and education programs to the FY 2007 budget.
ACTION IS NEEDED NOW. The Congressional schedule has not been finalized, but the House is expected to consider the budget during the week of April 3.
How to Contact Your Member of Congress
- Your voice matters - phone calls as well as emails will make an impact on the way your Representative will vote. Remember, this is a matter of urgency.
- Simply visit http://capwiz.com/jscpp/home. At this site, you should be to follow the step-by-step instructions for calling/emailing your Congressional representative. A sample letter will be provided for you.
- At the above website, by simply entering your zip code, you will be given the name, address, phone number, fax, website, and email address of your Member of Congress.
- If you call, don't hesitate to leave a message with the receptionist or on voice mail. You may also ask to speak to the Representatives Health Care Legislative Assistant. Be sure to leave your message, you name, your phone number and if you have time your address. Keep your message brief and to the point.
Background
The House of Representatives is taking up the President's Budget request. As you know, the Senate added money to the section of the budget that funds the NIH thanks to Senators Specter (R-PA) and Harkin (D-IA).
Rep. Mike Castle (R-Del.) has agreed to take the lead on supporting the Specter-Harkin amendment when the budget is debated on the floor of the House.
Remember As a community we were able to come together to urge a cross section of Republican Senators to vote in favor of providing additional funding for health care and education programs. We need to exert the same all out effort in contacting all House Members - Republicans and Democrats - to deliver the message that the FY 2007 budget must include an additional $7 billion for health and education programs.
- Log in to post comments
geez, you guys just want more more more all the time, huh? A doubling of the NIH budget wasn't enough for you? now you want the moon?
well you can forget it! NASA's getting the moon. and NSF deserves a doubling before NIH gets any new cash, so there!!
I would love to see the NSF budget increased as well (or even rather than the NIH budget). I don't know what's going on with the NSF budget, so if you have any information I'd like to hear it.
The doubling of the NIH budget ended in with the 2003 fiscal year, which is in essence ancient history. Since then, the NIH budget has been essentially flat. For the last two years, the budget has not even kept up with inflation, and some institutes (the NCI, for instance) have suffered cuts in real dollars for two years in a row.
We'd settle for just keeping up with inflation. The "doubling" of the NIH budget is being undone.
If you want to know what is at stake read this commentary by Paul Nurse: http://www.cell.com/content/article/fulltext?uid=PIIS0092867405014613
To see what I think about Nurse's editorial go here. In short, I agree with what Nurse wrote, but I can't stand how he wrote it.