J.E.D
Gold Member
- Jul 28, 2011
- 14,159
- 2,229
- 280
- Banned
- #1
This is grand. After stories come out about children being turned away from cancer treatment because of the gov't shutdown, House Republicans stage a photo-op in lab coats...hilarity and hypocrisy ensue.
House GOP Pleads For Funding For Kids With Cancer After Canceling Research For Kids With Cancer
House GOP Pleads For Funding For Kids With Cancer After Canceling Research For Kids With Cancer
The politics behind the government shutdown reached a new level of absurdity on Thursday as a group of conservative House Republicans -- the same ones refusing to fund the government unless Obamacare is delayed or defunded -- pleaded with Democrats to pass a bill only funding services for children with cancer.
Dressed in lab coats, members of the Republican Doctors Caucus made the case that pediatric cancer research trials at the National Institutes of Health deserve to be funded, even if the rest of the government is not.
For all their talk that NIH funding should be restored in this case, House Republicans have done a terrible job funding the agency in recent years.
In 2010, Cantor himself proposed a $1.3 billion cut to NIH. The 2011 House Republican budget also sought to cut $1.6 billion from the agency. In House Republicans' 2013 budget proposal put forward by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), cuts to the agency's budget approached 20 percent.
Still, when asked Thursday about the bill to restore funding to the NIH, Cantor said he's "been insistent on making as a priority funding for the NIH, and specifically funding for pediatric medical research."