We're Spending Billions There & Cutting Corners Here

NIH Officials Say Bush Budget Threatens Staff, Research

After reading Hostile Takeover: How Big Money and Corruption Conquered Our Government--and How We Take It Back by David Sirota (ISBN-10: 0307237346), I am thoroughly convinced that the GOP approach to government, "politricks," our economy, and the budget and appropriations process is totally munged. One of the contentions made by Sirota is that not only doesn't the "trickle down" voo-doo economics first advocated by Ronald Reagan not work, it offers a false hope to those that are suckered into the higher morality, family values, work ethic and "pull yourself up by the bootstraps" rhetoric offered by the GOP, especially those that are hard core about these position.

The bottom line for taxpayers should be that every time the GOP has been in the White House and controlling congress our deficits have reached record levels. Then there is the level of scandalous behaviors, actions and influence peddling. While the Democrats are also guilty of these behaviors, the level, depth and scope of these scandals under the Democrats has almost always been less severe than when the GOP was in control. In fact, I am reading several history texts on several states where the GOP has been dominant over the last 3 or 4 decades and it is an interesting coincidence that these states experience greater poverty, higher taxes and higher deficits under GOP control.

But what is striking--and Sirota asserts this is directly tied to the cuts and focus spending in favor of big business, especially those tied into the military-industrial complex--is that while the GOP is in control we have cutbacks in terms of our infrastructure (roadways, dams, levees, bridges, railways, ports, etc.), our health care and public health efforts (US Public Health Service, CDC, NIH, Drug & Alcohol Institutes, funding for community health care clinics and hospitals, etc.), our emergency response systems (ambulance, fire, emergency management agencies, HAZMAT response readiness, and National Guard readiness, etc.), as well as welfare services (food stamps, aid to children (SCHIP), emergency funding for the homeless, Medicaid, housing resources for our homeless, etc.), housing programs (HUD projects, affordable housing joint ventures, discrimination enforcement, low-income home buying programs, etc.), and other allocations of our tax dollars that support the seven purposes of our government delineated in the Preamble of our Constitution.

So, despite claims our economy is strong coming from the Bush administration and the GOP, our current situation is such that we are spending billions in Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Kosovo, Sudan, and elsewhere while ignoring billions of dollars worth of spending to assure and secure our standard of living, our way of life and the principles of democracy that are supposed to be our reason for having achieved the success we have over the last three hundred years.

The following articles demonstrate how bad off we are and how badly Bush and the GOP have been managing our resources... and how inattentive the Democrats are as of this date to these needs as well.

National Institutes of Health brass warned appropriators Friday they are losing young scientists and cutting back on crucial research efforts, and they fear the situation could worsen in the face of a looming budget cut.

Senate Labor-HHS Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, and ranking member Arlen Specter, R-Pa., plan to use the testimony as ammunition to stave off a $328 million cut President Bush proposed for fiscal 2008.

NIH directors of four institutes that focus on chronic diseases ticked off several studies they have downsized: a clinical trial on heart disease indicators in Hispanics, initiatives in regenerative medicine used to replace tissue, a comparison of surgical and non-surgical remedies for lower back pain and dissemination nationwide of results of a study of genetic markers that can be used to identify osteoarthritis. Extra money, the directors said, would be used to train researchers and maintain clinical investigations.

"I'm particularly concerned about the effects of our budget on young people," said Elizabeth Nabel, director of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. College students interested in medicine are discouraged by a consistently rocky budget forecast, said Nabel, who was backed up by the other directors.

Stephen Katz, director of the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases, also used the budget forum as an opportunity, as NIH Director Elias Zerhouni did a month ago, to make the case for increased funding for stem cell research. He honed in on regenerative therapy, which could be used for treatments that could eliminate hip replacements and re-grow kidney tissue for diabetes patients.

Researchers cannot study regenerative therapy without studying stem cells, Katz emphasized. "You can't do one without the other so you have to invest in the cells that will grow the tissue," he said.

Bush froze funding for embryonic stem cell research based on moral concerns, allowing study only of stem cell lines that were already being used for research when he took office. The president's total proposed 2008 budget for NIH is $28.6 billion, a cut from the $28.9 billion in NIH spending for the current fiscal year.

Prison Horrors for the Mentally Ill

While this article specifically focuses on New York, the problems and issues identified therein are common to every one of our states. We have historically treated our mentally ill with significant neglect, disdain and disrespect, often resorting to the type of warehousing and imprisonment discussed below. Our state mental health institutions are neglected and in sad disrepair in almost every state. The number of homeless people is continuing to rise, and a good number of the homeless are families, children and/or veterans of military service (another example of disrespecting our heroes).

The State of New York took a step toward basic human decency when it agreed to settle a lawsuit brought on behalf of mentally ill prisoners, who often endure horrific neglect and mistreatment. The settlement, which must be approved by the courts, provides for a range of welcome changes, including better care and monitoring for the severely ill people being held in solitary confinement or disciplinary lockdown, typically for 23 hours a day.

It still falls far short of what’s needed and is not a substitute for the sweeping reforms vetoed by former Gov. George Pataki last year. The Legislature should pass that bill again and Gov. Eliot Spitzer should promptly sign it. Maltreatment of mentally ill prisoners is a national shame. People who suffer from delusions and hallucinations are far more likely than non-disabled prisoners to break rules. When they are confined in their cells, their symptoms worsen. All too often they harm themselves.

A 2003 study found that nearly a quarter of the inmates in lockdown were mentally ill. Of those, nearly 45 percent reported that they had tried suicide and nearly a third reported self-mutilation. The settlement provides slightly better treatment and better suicide prevention in lockdown. But the basic problem is that severely ill inmates should not be held in lockdown at all.

The mental health bill would ban disciplinary confinement for the seriously mentally ill. It would also require the prison system to expand treatment programs and give mental health professionals more influence in deciding treatment options. The measure would more than pay for itself by reducing danger and disorder behind bars, shortening prison stays for the mentally ill and increasing the likelihood that they would manage to stay out once they are released.

Given that we have so many issues at home, one has to wonder why President Bush and company cannot seem to recognize the horrible state of affairs. The GOP has been so fixed on providing tax breaks to the top 10% income earners and enabling corporations and Big Business to screw the consumers that it has failed to deal with these unsatisfactory conditions and un-addressed issues. The Democrats are so lost within the current leadership that they are not taking into consideration our most fundamental needs this early in the game. The Dems are so wrapped up in the fight over how to get Bush and company to follow the law and withdraw our troops that they are not addressing what we at home need. If, however, impeachment were to occur, then we could clear the decks of such distractions, get our troops on a scheduled and orderly withdrawal, re-focus our spending on the needs at home and do good with the money we send outside of our borders.