Trump's Budget Calls for Deep Cuts to Public Health Programs and Research

New York Times

02-05-2025

Two of President Trump's favorite targets — the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — will have their funding cut nearly in half under Mr. Trump's proposed budget, which also wipes out a $4.1 billion program that helps low-income Americans pay their heating and cooling bills.
The budget blueprint, released Friday, advances, in hard numbers and biting words, Mr. Trump's assault on the nation's universities and scientific research enterprise. It calls the N.I.H., the world's premier biomedical research agency, 'too big and unfocused,' and proposes to cut its funding to $27 billion from roughly $48 billion — a stark contrast from its heyday in the 1990s, when Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill agreed to double its budget over a period of five years.
'NIH has broken the trust of the American people with wasteful spending, misleading information, risky research, and the promotion of dangerous ideologies that undermine public health,' the budget document declares.
It goes on to effectively accuse the institutes of funding research that led to the coronavirus pandemic, and says the N.I.H. has 'also promoted radical gender ideology to the detriment of America's youth.'
Funding for the C.D.C., whose mission has expanded greatly over the past several decades, would drop to $4 billion from about $9 billion under the proposed budget, which eliminates entire divisions of the agency, including programs devoted to chronic disease prevention; injury prevention, including those from guns; environmental health; and global health and public health preparedness.
The budget says those programs are either duplicative, focused on diversity equity and inclusion, or 'simply unnecessary.'
While chronic disease and injuries are now major causes of death in the United States, the C.D.C.'s scope would be narrowed, and would return to its original mission of protecting Americans against infectious disease.
The budget outline also calls for the elimination of the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program — labeling it 'unnecessary' because Mr. Trump is planning to increase domestic oil and gas production and reduce energy prices.
The Government Accountability Office has raised significant integrity concerns related to fraud and abuse in the program, but it currently helps 6.2 million Americans from Texas to Maine offset their high utility bills. Last month, the administration fired everyone working in the office that administers the program.
Additionally, the budget proposes to cut more than $1 billion from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, which directs funds and support nationwide to address two of the country's biggest public health crises.
While Mr. Kennedy, a recovering heroin addict, has said he is concerned in particular about the opioid epidemic, the budget rails against the public health strategy known as 'harm reduction,' which was supported by the Biden administration and involves decreasing the risk of deaths and overdoses by ensuring that people who use illicit substances can do so safely.
It specifically criticizes 'safe smoking kits' and 'syringes.'