White House Budget Director Russ Vought has tried to cut funding to the National Institutes of Health, but Congress is no longer taking him seriously.
Watt last week released a proposal to cut the 2027 budget for the world’s largest funder of health research by 10 percent, down from 40 percent last year. It’s unlikely that Congress or agency heads will listen to him.
MPs reject Watt’s first major cut expense bill","Add":{"Target": :"New","Property":(),"url": :"https://legislation.politicopro.com/bill/US_119_HR_7148?activeTabs=actions","_Identification": :"0000019d-7d51-debe-a7dd-7ffdf5ac000e","_Type": :"33ac701a-72c1-316a-a3a5-13918cf384df"},"_Identification": :"0000019d-7d51-debe-a7dd-7ffdf5ac000f","_Type": :"02ec1f82-5e56-3b8c-af6e-6fc7c8772266"}”>expense bill They passed in February and already promised","Add":{"Target": :"New","Property":(),"url": :"https://www.appropriations.senate.gov/news/majority/chair-collins-statement-on-Presidents-fy2027-budget-request","_Identification": :"0000019d-7d51-debe-a7dd-7ffdf5ac0010","_Type": :"33ac701a-72c1-316a-a3a5-13918cf384df"},"_Identification": :"0000019d-7d51-debe-a7dd-7ffdf5ac0011","_Type": :"02ec1f82-5e56-3b8c-af6e-6fc7c8772266"}”>already promised Rejecting the little one this year. While Vought has been successful in reducing spending at some other agencies, NIH has proven to be a difficult target because lawmakers have a symbiotic relationship with the agency. Much of the money they hand out is returned to their states for disease research, clinical trials, and other medical advances — plus photo-ops with researchers boasting about their successes are a win with voters.
Jay Bhattacharya, director of the National Health Research Agency, is expected to defend the budget before Congress, but it’s unclear whether he stands behind the cuts to his agency more than Congress does. While other agencies like the State Department defied Congress and implemented Watt’s cost-cutting vision by not spending their budget last year, Bhattacharya spent every dollar given to him by Congress.
Watt, considered one of the most powerful budget directors in recent history, held the same post during Trump’s first term. He has used his second trick to aggressively use his budget tools to curb government spending. But NIH is likely to clarify the limits of its power.
Sudip Parikh, president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the world’s largest professional society for scientists, said Bhattacharya’s vision for the agency “does not align” with the budget put forth by Vought.
“There is a disconnect between the budget process and scientific leadership,” he said. “It’s really puzzling to me – how this fits in with this idea that we’re going to be competitive, this idea that we’re going to bring a golden age of science to this country.”
Vought’s plan for the NIH last year, coupled with cuts directed at Elon Musk’s government efficiency department, sent lawmakers of both parties into a panic. In addition to Democrats’ hand-wringing, Senate Appropriations Chairwoman Susan Collins of Maine and another Republican on her panel, Katie Britt of Alabama, spoke publicly about the threat it poses to universities in their states. Ultimately, Congress gave the agency a $415 million increase. Following a DOGE-directed slowdown in granting grants, Bhattacharya demonstrated on September 30 how to spend the agency’s budget by the end of the fiscal year.
The agency largely distributes that money through grants to universities and research facilities to support scientific studies and clinical trials.
Watt’s decision to again raise his proposal to cut the agency’s budget seems even more improbable than last year.
Just three weeks before the White House budget was released on April 3, Bhattacharya shared it with lawmakers, including Democrats on the House Appropriations panel. Referring to the stimulus approved by MPs over Watt’s objections, Bhattacharya reassured delegates that the days of slow-moving grants were over. He said, “Really, you all have been very generous with NIH this past year, and my job is to make sure that every single dollar goes out, and that it goes out on excellent science by the end of the year.”
White House 2027 budget proposal Requests $41 billion for agency","Add":{"Target": :"New","Property":(),"url": :"https://subscriber.politicopro.com/article/2026/04/white-house-budget-proposes-cuts-to-mental-health-and-gender-affirming-care-00857329","_Identification": :"0000019d-7d51-debe-a7dd-7ffdf5ac0012","_Type": :"33ac701a-72c1-316a-a3a5-13918cf384df"},"_Identification": :"0000019d-7d51-debe-a7dd-7ffdf5ac0013","_Type": :"02ec1f82-5e56-3b8c-af6e-6fc7c8772266"}”>Requests $41 billion for agencyA $5 billion reduction from 2026 levels. The proposal would eliminate several NIH institutes, including the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities and the Fogarty International Center – which funds global health research.
Already, some Republicans have said they will oppose the cuts. After the sighting, Collins called them “inappropriate.” Three days before Watt released the new budget plan, Bhattacharya was in Philadelphia visiting the University of Pennsylvania’s cancer laboratory with Senator Dave McCormick (R-Pa.).
The symbiotic relationship between the agency and the lawmakers who funded it was on full display. “Here we meet patients who have been given a second lease of life from deadly cancer,” Bhattacharya said. Report from a local radio station","Add":{"Target": :"New","Property":(),"url": :"https://whyy.org/articles/dave-mccormick-nih-pennsylvania-medical-sciences-laboratory/","_Identification": :"0000019d-7d51-debe-a7dd-7ffdf5ad0000","_Type": :"33ac701a-72c1-316a-a3a5-13918cf384df"},"_Identification": :"0000019d-7d51-debe-a7dd-7ffdf5ad0001","_Type": :"02ec1f82-5e56-3b8c-af6e-6fc7c8772266"}”>Report from a local radio station.
McCormick described the work of lab director Carl June to cure patients’ cancer by using their immune cells as “remarkable” and promised to oppose any cuts at NIH.
Watt’s budget Still living in the pandemic era, the budget proposal argues that cuts to NIH are justified because it has “broken the American people’s trust by promoting wasteful spending, misinformation, risky research, and dangerous ideologies that undermine public health.”
In a statement to POLITICO, budget office spokeswoman Rachel Coley defended the proposed cuts. “We’ve seen that a dollar invested doesn’t mean we’ll get a dollar of good science in return. NIH has what it takes,” Cooley said. “For NIH to be $39 trillion in debt after years of failure, $41 billion of which is well above COVID levels, is actually quite generous.”
Health and Human Services spokesman Andrew Nixon echoed that sentiment, arguing that the cuts were aimed at “politicized and ideologically driven research.” The agency, he said, is “returning to rigorous, patient-centered science — focused on chronic diseases like cancer and dementia.”
No one would be more sympathetic to that issue than Bhattacharya, who made his name as a critic of then-NIH official Anthony Fauci, who was criticized by some Republicans for the agency’s pandemic response. But Bhattacharya does not accept Watt’s view that the solution is to cut the agency’s budget or reduce its workforce.
For example, Vaught sought to cut more than 4,000 NIH jobs last fall after Democrats refused to pass an appropriations bill. Under Bhattacharya’s leadership, it did not harm anyone","Add":{"Target": :"New","Property":(),"url": :"https://www.politico.com/news/2025/10/25/hhs-shutdown-layoffs-doge-vought-00620786","_Identification": :"0000019d-7d51-debe-a7dd-7ffdf5ad0002","_Type": :"33ac701a-72c1-316a-a3a5-13918cf384df"},"_Identification": :"0000019d-7d51-debe-a7dd-7ffdf5ad0003","_Type": :"02ec1f82-5e56-3b8c-af6e-6fc7c8772266"}”>don’t bite anyone.
Speaking to House appropriators last month, Bhattacharya said the agency had indeed lost confidence during the pandemic, but the solution was “better treatment, better treatment, better pay, stopping the disease.”
Some Democrats, who viewed the pandemic differently from Bhattacharya, now say they see him as the anti-Watt.
Democratic Representative Mark Pocan of Wisconsin, chairman emeritus of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, told Bhattacharya at the House hearing, “I wish you were the face instead of Russ Vought or any of the DOGE brothers, because this has really hurt us.”
Agency heads are expected to defend the president’s budget before Congress, and Bhattacharya is unlikely to break with tradition when he testifies before appropriators in the next few months. But ultimately, Congress controls how much funding the agency receives, and keeping NIH funding flowing benefits lawmakers on both sides of the aisle as the medium-term approaches.
The agency’s billions of dollars are largely spent awarding grants to universities and research facilities in both red and blue states, which support jobs and drive local economies. Republican Bhattacharyahave been requesting","Add":{"Target": :"New","Property":(),"url": :"https://www.politico.com/news/2026/02/03/democrats-handed-rfk-jr-billions-more-than-he-asked-for-00763792","_Identification": :"0000019d-7d51-debe-a7dd-7ffdf5ad0004","_Type": :"33ac701a-72c1-316a-a3a5-13918cf384df"},"_Identification": :"0000019d-7d51-debe-a7dd-7ffdf5ad0005","_Type": :"02ec1f82-5e56-3b8c-af6e-6fc7c8772266"}”>Have been requesting Bhattacharya To give their states a bigger piece of the pie.
Republicans and NIH scientific leaders also see investment in the agency as essential to beating China in the race to discover the next medical breakthroughs.
“We have a biomedical research enterprise and ecosystem in this country that is capable of getting cures and treatments to patients in the United States and around the world,” said AAAS’s Parikh. “It would be crazy for us to have made all these investments, putting us on the cusp of these huge opportunities, only to see it come to fruition by competitors.”
The White House budget office appears to be suffering from a “COVID hangover effect,” said Cary Wolinetz, former chief of staff to longtime NIH director Francis Collins, citing the agency’s pandemic response as justification for the cuts. But many Republicans in Congress have moved beyond their pandemic-era criticisms, he said. He said the popular view among lawmakers and patients is that cures for diseases like cancer, HIV and cystic fibrosis depend on strong NIH funding.
Recent polling shows overwhelming public support across the political spectrum Using federal dollars to fund medical research","Add":{"Target": :"New","Property":(),"url": :"https://www.insidehighered.com/news/quick-takes/2025/06/30/survey-americans-back-boosting-medical-research-funding","_Identification": :"0000019d-7d51-debe-a7dd-7ffdf5ad0006","_Type": :"33ac701a-72c1-316a-a3a5-13918cf384df"},"_Identification": :"0000019d-7d51-debe-a7dd-7ffdf5ad0007","_Type": :"02ec1f82-5e56-3b8c-af6e-6fc7c8772266"}”>Using federal dollars to fund medical research and improve public health.
“Republicans are not immune to what they are hearing from their constituents suffering from the disease,” said Wolinetz, now chair of the health and bioscience practice at Lewis-Burke Associates, a lobbying group. What motivates lawmakers to fund NIH, he added, is “the recognition that the only way to solve patients’ urgent needs is through investment in medical research.”
