Illustration: Sarah Grillo / Axios
Hypothetical 10% budget cuts to NIH and staff reductions at FDA would result in 53 fewer drugs becoming available over the next 30 years, CBO has estimated.
- But another detail jumped out at us: The scorekeeper says it's unable to estimate the effect of even bigger cuts, such as those in the range of President Trump's budget request.
Why it matters: The CBO is in effect saying that an almost 40% cut to the NIH is so big that it is unsure it can extrapolate from historical experience to estimate the effects.
What they're saying: "You also asked CBO to analyze the implications of reducing NIH funding by 35% to 38%," the scorekeeper wrote Friday to the ranking members of four House and Senate committees who requested the analysis.
- "CBO has not yet assessed whether historical evidence can be generalized and reliably used to estimate the effects of a reduction in funding of that magnitude."
- Reps. Frank Pallone and Brendan Boyle, and Sens. Bernie Sanders and Jeff Merkley, jumped on this finding.
- "The Trump administration is proposing a nearly 40% cut to the NIH's budget, suggesting the harms could be far greater than what CBO estimates," the press release from their offices states.
- "In fact, the proposed cuts are so enormous that CBO's own model is unable to produce an estimate."
The big picture: Congress is unlikely to actually cut NIH by 40%, but the proposal does show how historic bipartisan support for funding the agency has frayed in the aftermath of the pandemic.
- And CBO's analysis shows how it's beyond the pale of conventional budget forecasts.
