Why '06 and '08 matter

NIH funding increased an average of 7% before Clinton and Congress decided to double NIH funding in the late 90's by increasing it by around 17% for a number of years. Since then, Bush and the Republican majorities agreed on first holding it steady and then decreasing it relative to inflation.

The black arrow is one that I drew representing an approximation of what a steady 7% increase in the budget would have looked like by now, the blue line comes from AAAS, and I removed some lines from other agency funding b/c my livelihood doesn't depend on them. The point is that though I might not have drawn that line precisely, in what looks like anywhere between 2-3 years all that effort to increase NIH funding will have been for naught. The whole idea behind doubling the NIH budget was to attract the best science here in the US soas to support our flourishing pharmaceutical industry and health care system.

I wonder if maybe a greater threat than single-payer health care to the industry is weak government funded basic research. Think about it: all those countries we keep hearing about with that evil evil "socialised" medicine that supposedly cripples the industry to the point where hapless CEOs can only buy one Mercedes every year have another thing in common: relatively small research budgets compared to the US.

Even if that is completely false, which I highly doubt, we funded research to get stuff done these past 10 or so years. In order to get that stuff done, people were trained (graduate school) and hired who now need funding to continue with the one thing they can do to advance society.

That's why these coming two elections are so important. The Senate is pretty much ready to override Bush's veto in this area of funding, but the House is where all the nasty ideologues sit. If we must tolerate Republicans, why not limit it to those who won't completely gut the budget and wind up hurting America for generations to come? Or just make it easy and vote Democrat. Remember: every smart bomb is another NIH grant gone poof!