Trump’s budget proposes steep cuts to NIH, health funding
The White House on Friday revealed President Trump’s budget request for fiscal 2026, which includes cutting a quarter of the discretionary funding designated to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
In a letter addressed to Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russell Vought listed out the major discretionary funding changes requested by the Trump administration.
The 2026 proposal is seeking to cut $33.3 billion in discretionary funding for HHS, representing a 26.2 percent reduction compared to the fiscal 2025 budget.
This includes a $3.6 billion reduction in discretionary funding for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), an $18 billion reduction for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), a $674 million reduction for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Program Management and a $240 million reduction for Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response (ASPR) Hospital Preparedness Program.
The only health program that gains discretionary funding in the proposal is HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) Commission, for which the budget provides $500 million.
The budget claims these funds would “allow the Secretary to tackle nutrition, physical activity, healthy lifestyles, over-reliance on medication and treatments, the effects of new technological habits, environmental impacts, and food and drug quality and safety across HHS.”
In his letter, Vought wrote that the recommended funding levels “result from a rigorous, line-by-line review of FY 2025 spending, which was found to be laden with spending contrary to the needs of ordinary working Americans and tilted toward funding niche non-governmental organizations and institutions of higher education committed to radical gender and climate ideologies antithetical to the American way of life.”
The reasons cited by the Trump administration for the numerous proposed budget cuts include arguments that the CDC has “duplicative, DEI, or simply unnecessary programs,” citing the National Center for Chronic Diseases Prevention and Health Promotion and the National Center for Environmental Health as examples.
At NIH, the recommended cuts include eliminating funding for the National Institute on Minority and Health Disparities, “which is replete with [diversity, equity and inclusion] expenditures” per Vought’s letter, as well as funding for the National Institute of Nursing Research and the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health.
Medicaid, currently the center of a headache for the House GOP as it seeks to find cuts in the budget, will suffer “no impacts” in its ability to provide benefits despite the quarter of a billion-dollar reduction in discretionary funding being asked for, the proposal claimed.
The Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, which helps households pay for heating and cooling costs, was deemed unnecessary by the Trump administration which argued states already have policies in place preventing utilities from being disconnected in low-income households.
“The President’s Budget Request is simply one step in the annual budget process. This request has come to Congress late, and key details still remain outstanding,” the Maine Republican said in a statement.
“Based on my initial review, however, I have serious objections to the proposed freeze in our defense funding given the security challenges we face and to the proposed funding cuts to – and in some cases elimination of – programs like LIHEAP, TRIO, and those that support biomedical research. Ultimately, it is Congress that holds the power of the purse,” she added.
MAINE SENATOR SUSAN COLLINS - TIME TO RETIRE!
Most Mainers don’t think Susan Collins deserves another term, survey says
Maine's Republican senator is in a tough political spot, and her latest favorability numbers show it.
SENATOR SUSAN COLLINS
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OPEN SECRETS SEN. SUSAN COLLINS
On May 18, 2021, Axios[97] revealed the Federal Bureau of Investigation investigation of defense contractor Martin Kao, former CEO of Navatek,[98][99] who funneled $150,000 to a pro-Collins super PAC, 1820PAC, via a shell LLC, Society for Young Women Scientists and Engineers, as a federal contractor, and reimbursed donations to the Collins 2020 campaign, both of which are illegal. A spokesperson said that the campaign had no knowledge of the exchange.[100][101]
Abortion
Collins is one of two Republican U.S. Senators, along with Lisa Murkowski, who describe themselves as pro-choice, or pro-abortion rights, and supported Roe v. Wade.[126][127][128]
According to HuffPost, Collins has repeatedly voted to confirm judges who have signaled opposition to abortion rights. She has defended these votes by citing her support for both of Obama's Supreme Court appointments.[129] She voted to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court, saying she did not believe he would overturn Roe.[130][131] She said she felt "vindication" in 2018 when Kavanaugh voted with the court's four Democratic-appointed justices and Chief Justice John Roberts not to hear cases against Planned Parenthood from Kansas and Louisiana, although Planned Parenthood disagreed with her assessment of the situation.[132][133] In 2020, Collins faced renewed criticism of her vote by progressive groups when Kavanaugh said states should be permitted to severely reduce access to and availability of abortion in his dissent in June Medical Services LLC v Russo.[134][135]
In 2021, Collins was one of three Republican senators to decline to sign an amicus brief supporting an anti-abortion Mississippi law banning abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy.[136] She faced renewed criticism after Kavanaugh voted with the majority, in a 5–4 vote, to reject an emergency petition to block a Texas law banning abortion after six weeks of pregnancy; the law went into effect while facing continued challenges in the courts.[137] Responding to the legislation and criticism, Collins denounced the Texas anti-abortion law as "extreme, inhumane, and unconstitutional" and said she supports the Roe precedent as the "law of the land".[138]
In December 2017, Collins voted to pass the 2017 Republican tax plan.[156] The bill greatly reduces corporate taxes while reducing taxes for some individuals and increasing them for others by removing some popular deductions.[156] The bill also repeals Affordable Care Act's individual mandate, leaving thirteen million Americans uninsured and raising premiums by an estimated additional 10% per year.[157][158] After the vote, Collins said she received assurances from congressional leaders that they would pass legislation intended to mitigate some of the adverse effects of the individual mandate's repeal.[158] When asked how she could vote for a bill that would increase the deficit by an estimated $1 trillion (over ten years) after having railed against the deficit during the Obama administration, Collins insisted that it would not increase the deficit. She said she had been advised in this determination by economists Glenn Hubbard, Larry Lindsey, and Douglas Holtz-Eakin.[159][156] Conservative columnist Jennifer Rubin wrote that Hubbard and Holtz-Eakin denied saying the plan would not increase the deficit.[160][161]
After voting for the tax plan, Collins became the top recipient of political donations from private equity firms.[162] Blackstone chief executive Steven Schwarzman donated $2 million to Collins's PAC, and Ken Griffin of the hedge fund Citadel donated $1.5 million.[162]
Along with all other Senate and House Republicans, Collins voted against the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021.[163] On September 30, 2021, she was one of 15 Senate Republicans to join all Democrats and both Independents to approve a temporary spending bill to continue government funding and avoid a government shutdown.[164][165] On October 7, 2021, she voted with 10 other Republicans and all members of the Democratic caucus to break the filibuster on raising the debt ceiling.[166][167] She voted with all Republicans against the legislation to raise the debt ceiling.[168]
Immigration
In 2007, Collins voted against the bipartisan McCain-Kennedy comprehensive immigration reform proposal, which would have given undocumented immigrants (including those brought into the United States as minors) a pathway to citizenship if they met certain requirements, while also substantially increasing border enforcement.[213] In 2010, she voted against the DREAM Act.[214] In 2013, Collins was one of 14 Republicans to vote in favor of a comprehensive immigration bill that included border security and a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.[215] She opposed Obama's decision to achieve immigration reform through executive action, which gave deportation relief to as many as five million undocumented immigrants through Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA).[216]
United States Postal Service
In 2006, Collins sponsored the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act, which passed the Senate unanimously. It requires the USPS to prepay 50 years' worth of employee health and retirement benefits.[247] Since the act passed, the USPS has defaulted on payments.[248][249]
In March 2017, Collins co-sponsored the Israel Anti-Boycott Act (S.270), which made it a federal crime, punishable by a maximum sentence of 20 years imprisonment,[188] for Americans to encourage or participate in boycotts against Israel and Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories if protesting actions by the Israeli government.[189]
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