On April 3, the Trump administration submitted its annual budget request to Congress. The proposal included significant reductions in funding for education, housing, and health, redirecting resources toward the military due to the ongoing war in Iran. 

The budget proposes a $5 billion budget cut to NIH (National Institutes of Health). “NIH broke the trust of the American people with wasteful spending, misleading information, risky research, and the promotion of dangerous ideologies that undermine public health,” the proposal stated.

A $129 million budget cut to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) was also included in the request. “Much of AHRQ’s research on quality, safety, and affordability of healthcare delivery is wasteful or duplicative of research conducted at NIH,” the proposal stated, while also mentioning that AHRQ pushed radical gender ideology onto children.

“Mr. Trump did not address Medicare and Medicaid directly,” Tony Romm and Annie Karni wrote for The New York Times regarding the budget proposal. “But,” they added, “he did ask Congress to slash about $73 billion next fiscal year across a wide array of domestic agencies and programs, including education, healthcare, housing and nutrition assistance.”

However, Tony Romm wrote for the NYT on April 3, “At one point, Mr. Trump indicated at a private lunch that military spending needed to be a national priority, even at the expense of federal safety-net programs and other government aid. ‘It’s not possible for us to take care of day care, Medicaid, Medicare, all of these individual things,’ he said. ‘They can do it on a state basis.’”

“If nothing else, the president’s budget shows an administration’s priorities, and this budget makes clear that the Trump administration is doubling down on dismantling our nation’s health infrastructure,” Anthony Wright, executive director of the healthcare advocacy group, Families USA, said in a statement. “After enacting the biggest healthcare cuts in history, totaling more than $1 trillion, President Trump now proposes even deeper cuts in his new budget that slash the programs and agencies that seek to improve the health and care for all Americans.”

Furthermore, Wright remarked, “Beyond the massive cuts proposed, this budget notably does nothing to address the skyrocketing healthcare costs that are bleeding American families dry.”

“While this budget may not pass as proposed in a normal budget process, Republican congressional leaders are moving ahead with a budget reconciliation process to jam their priorities through on a partisan vote,” Wright added. “Many of these harmful proposals could quickly move from rhetoric to reality. We fully expect a ‘reconciliation 2.0’ could be used to advance these cuts along with further attempts to cut Medicaid and access to coverage.”