Trump, Republicans, and spending on research

The Progressive left and mainstream media have for two years been telling all who have ears that the Sun will darken, the seas will turn blood-red, and the polar ice will melt with Trump in the White House and the GOP in control. As a cancer researcher, I often get asked the question, "well, haven't your research funds dried up since Trump became president?" So let's review.

The largest increases in U.S. history for biomedical research funding occurred under a Republican president (Richard Nixon) in the 1970s. That, by the way, is also the largest expenditure in world history. Yes, the U.S. accounts for the largest share here by light-years. This current year, 2018, the NIH budget for research spending increased 8.8%, the largest increase in ten years, a span that nicely encompasses the research Death Valley days of the Obama administration. What this means for me personally as a researcher is that an Ebola virus project I am involved in, and that had been rejected for funding in 2017, might actually get funded. The left is amazingly adept at divisive politics. But here's a point for the left to ponder: cancer or Ebola – they don't care whether you are white, black, Latino, LGBT, male, female, Millennial, or retiree. I respect conservatives – not the shallow left – as being the go-to people for getting a job done. When the last serious Ebola outbreak hit a few years back, the Obama-Jarrett-Rhodes White House decided it would be bad optics to quarantine countries in the hot zone. By God's grace, we and the world dodged a bullet then. Pray that such folks are not in control if one day the pandemic that's out there really, actually comes. Your lives, your kids' lives will hang in the balance. Leftism isn't just a talking point. Sometimes it really matters. Remember this going into 2019.