Cancer has taken the lives of far too many in my family. My late wife, mother, father, youngest sister, paternal grandmother, maternal grandfather, and only aunt all died from various forms of cancer. It continues to take its toll in my family. Two years ago, my oldest sister was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. Now, after months of various kinds of chemotherapy, the cancer persists. But she still has some hope. She is aware that as of 2023 the US death rate from cancer had fallen 34 percent from its 1991 peak and the survival rate for all cancers is now 70%, up from 50 percent in the 1970s. Early last week, she became even more hopeful when she learned that she qualifies for a clinical trial. Thanks to clinical research, patients like my sister can hold on to hope when conventional chemotherapy fails.
Given my family’s history with cancer, I was dismayed to read that the One Big Beautiful Budget Act (OBBBA) adopted by Congress cut overall funding for medical research by 31% with cancer research suffering a $4 billion dollar reduction.
A recent Vox article by Bryan Walsh noted that almost every breakthrough treatment can be traced back to federally funded basic research, which OBBBA cuts ruthlessly. He noted that in 2025 before the passage of OBBBA, the administration froze or canceled thousands of National Institutes of Health (NIH) and National Science Foundation (NSF) grants, while new NIH awards fell by billions of dollars. Even though Congress rejected the deepest proposed NIH cuts, the damage was already done. Hundreds of NIH-funded clinical trials were disrupted, and early-career scientists became discouraged because they were much less likely to win major grants.
But OBBBA not only cut cancer research; it also cut over a TRILLION dollars to Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act in the coming decade, funding that thousands of cancer patients will need to receive cancer screening and cancer treatments.
Walsh’s article emphasized that the breakthrough treatments that help cure cancer require “brutally expensive” medicines, with the average monthly price of a new cancer drug more than doubling between 2009 and 2019. Consequently, about half of surveyed American cancer patients and survivors have to take on debt to pay for treatment.
It is sad to think that OBBBA cut 4 billion dollars for cancer research at a time when it is becoming increasingly curable and cut Medicare and Obamacare funds by billions at a time when more and more patients need affordable health care. But even though Donald Trump leaned on Congress to pass OBBBA, I do not blame him for this misguided spending plan. I hold the GOP legislators accountable for they not only supported the cuts in OBBBA, they also ignored many unilateral spending decisions the President made that normally require some form of legislative review. Spending decisions such as:
- The “repair” of the reflecting pool near the Lincoln Monument, completed without following standard government bidding procedures, a project that has so far cost taxpayers $16 million dollars.
- Demolishing the East Wing of the White House with the plan to replace it with a “beautiful ballroom”, a plan the President initially claimed would be funded by donors and would not cost the public a dime. It recently came to light that the GOP legislators agreed to shifted roughly $300 million in OBBBA funds for features that will make the ballroom “secure”.
- Retrofitting the “gift” of a new jet from the Emirate of Qatar for one billion dollars. When the President announced the “generous gift” from the Emir very early in his term, no GOP legislators questioned the appropriateness of the President accepting such a gift from a foreign leader and they accepted his pledge that the “generous gift” wouldn’t cost the taxpayers anything.
- Bombing 63 boats “engaged in drug trafficking” and overthrowing the Venezuelan dictator, replacing him with his second-in-command who has retained the same repressive form of government. This has cost taxpayers $4.7 billion to date.
- And last, but hardly least, the Iran “military excursion”. A few weeks ago, Moody analytics estimated the ultimate cost of this non-war will be $132 billion, a figure that seems realistic given that AP reported a cost of over $11 billion for the first week of the military involvement and the President’s recent request for $88 billion to cover the costs SO FAR. This $88 billion is in addition to the $150 billion dollar increase in military spending included in OBBBA.
The GOP legislators are ultimately responsible for all these expenditures, for they neglected to provide the guardrails our system requires. They remained silent when Trump awarded no-bid contracts to unqualified vendors, demolished the East Wing of the White House, accepted a gift from a foreign leader, bombed “drug boats” and overthrew a dictator, and launched a “military excursion” in Iran. The inaction of the GOP legislators enabled President Trump to exercise unilateral power and unconstrained spending that undercuts our system of checks-and-balances.
I hold the GOP legislators responsible for the lives lost because of the military actions taken by the President, but closer to home, I hold them responsible for the lives that will be lost due to cuts in cancer research and health care. The GOP legislators had an opportunity and responsibility to question the President’s misguided budget priorities. They could have restored OBBBAs $4 billion cut for cancer research by seeking a 2% cut to the $71 billion increase in spending for ICE and the $150 billion increase in spending for the military. They could have offset the trillion-dollar cuts to health services over the next decade by refusing to cut taxes on billionaires, who will gain the trillion dollars taken away from government’s revenue. But the GOP legislators chose masked ICE agents and missiles over cancer research and tax-cuts for the wealthy over health care for the working class.
I’m happy my sister is getting the experimental treatment she needs. I wish Congress chose to make it possible for more patients to get that opportunity.