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The Activist group #GetOrganizedBK held a rally and DIE-IN at the Brooklyn Borough Hall steps and plaza in defense of the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. Erik Mcgregor

Opinion 'Trump’s budget attacks science, medical research and disease prevention'

Beyond the moral atrocities, Trump’s budget is not even competent from a technical perspective, writes Julien Mercille.

DO YOU KNOW the expression “to talk left, but walk right”?

It refers to a politician who gives left-leaning populist speeches to please the electorate with all sorts of promises, but in reality, enacts policies that do exactly the opposite: cutting services, benefitting corporations, and taking what little people have away from them.

This is exactly what Trump’s budget does, as announced this week.

$3.6 trillion of cuts

It outlines $3.6 trillion of cuts over the next decade, including to education and health care, but still manages to boost military spending. In other words, it’s an austerity budget, as Reuters noted.

The military is Trump’s priority as usual and gets a 10% increase for next year, or $52 billion extra. Virtually everything else gets slashed. Trump’s budget attacks science, medical research and disease prevention.

Just look at the list of proposed cuts.

Proposed cuts 

Next year, the National Cancer Institute is slated for a $1 billion cut, the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute will get a $575 million cut, and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases will have their budget reduced by $838 million.

Overall, the National Institute of Health funding will drop from $31.8 billion to $26 billion. On top of that, the National Science Foundation will absorb a $776 million reduction, or 11%. And the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) would be cut by 20% or more for the next two years.

This programme currently insures 5.6 million children in lower-working class families. Also, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will get a 31% cut, or nearly $2 billion, and could see its staff reduced by 3,000 from 15,000.

These cuts will kill people 

And the list goes on. Trump’s budget cuts $1.2 billion from the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The CDC responds to disease outbreaks around the world and in the United States while ensuring water and food safety. It also works on diseases that are preventable by vaccination and respiratory problems.

One of the largest cuts, $222 million, is proposed for chronic disease prevention programmes that help people prevent heart disease, stroke and diabetes. The budget seeks a 17% cut to the CDC’s global health programmes that respond to disease outbreaks globally.

This actually kills people. The New York Times reported warnings from researchers and public health advocates that cuts to AIDS treatment programs could cost 1 million lives around the world, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa, and would make 300,000 children orphans.

Indeed, the United States currently spends over $6 billion every year on programmes that buy antiretroviral drugs for 11.5 million people with HIV globally. Trump wants to cut those programmes by $1.1 billion, nearly 20% of their funding. This will reduce the number of people who have access to the vital drugs.

Therefore, more people will die directly, and more people will also die because there will be more HIV transmission (AIDS treatment prevents infected people from spreading the virus to others).

It’s been denounced by every media outlet 

And beyond those moral atrocities, Trump’s budget is not even done competently from a technical perspective. It was denounced by just about every media outlet as deeply flawed.

For example, as the Washington Post explained, the budget assumes that tax cuts for the rich will generate much more revenue than they will cost, which is not true.

The Financial Times declared that “even for those who share its goals, it fails to meet the minimum test of seriousness” and it relies on “double-counting and wishful thinking” by assuming that GDP will grow much more than it will in reality. The Centre on Budget and Policy Priorities said the budget is based on gimmicks and is “completely unconvincing”.

Indeed, the budget “assumes growth would reach 3 per cent by 2021, delivering $2 trillion of extra revenue over 10 years, even though slow population growth and weak productivity mean most forecasters anticipate a far weaker performance.  The budget also fails to detail the costs of a White House tax plan that outside estimates have suggested would reduce revenue by $5 trillion over a decade.”

Those are the kinds of mistakes that if made by a businessman, would quickly lead to his bankruptcy. Yet, Trump and his administration pretend they’re very clever and terrific, truly terrific, really terrific businessmen and should be trusted.

In reality, they don’t care about anything other than themselves and their buddies, as the budget makes crystal clear.

Julien Mercille is an associate professor at University College Dublin. Twitter: @JulienMercille.

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39 Comments
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    Mute Live Long
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    Dec 23rd 2014, 11:52 AM

    Watch the Sindo reel in horror this weekend at the above drop in prices lol

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    Mute Mike
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    Dec 23rd 2014, 11:53 AM

    Apartments were 44.3% to high in February 2007

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    Mute The Snowball Effect
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    Dec 23rd 2014, 12:28 PM

    And they will continue to fall once the new Central Bank mortgage lending rules come into play next month

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    Mute Mike
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    Dec 23rd 2014, 1:01 PM

    That would be good but I doubt that will happen. Lot’s of cash buyers on the Dublin market many from abroad.

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    Mute The Snowball Effect
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    Dec 23rd 2014, 1:15 PM

    CGT exemption ended this month

    Most cash buyers will now flock elsewhere for more attractive tax breaks

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    Mute AA
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    Dec 23rd 2014, 1:49 PM

    I wouldn’t expect prices to continue to fall Snowball. Not until the supply shortage is addressed, and that will take at least 2-3 years if they ramp up building now. It just means that the small pool of available houses for sale in Dublin will only be attainable by a select few who have access to the 20%. They exist.

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    Mute big willy
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    Dec 23rd 2014, 11:55 AM

    Property prices falling?

    What about the exorbitant rent I have to pay?

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    Mute The Snowball Effect
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    Dec 23rd 2014, 1:17 PM

    As my Father once said

    ” No matter how tough life gets, never resort to paying another persons mortgage for them “

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    Mute John Foody
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    Dec 23rd 2014, 1:26 PM

    Really!? My father used to say ‘No matter how bad it gets never pay a bank 100s of thousand of euro in mortgage interest in order to take a highly leveraged bet on one type of asset class, son’ and then added ‘Mortgage interest is dead money’

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    Mute Mick Byrne
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    Dec 23rd 2014, 2:44 PM

    Rent will increase from now, which is what central bank wants !

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    Dec 23rd 2014, 2:44 PM

    Atleast i won’t be paying rent when i’m 50 :)

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    Mute Simon Barnes
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    Dec 23rd 2014, 5:38 PM

    no, just property tax

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    Mute SMcB
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    Dec 23rd 2014, 7:55 PM

    I need to live in that highly leveraged asset… I can’t live in a pension fund. High house prices / house prices speculation is an absolute scourge to real investment in the economy.

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    Mute Joe Bloggs
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    Dec 25th 2014, 4:34 PM

    Which estate agent do you work for Shill?

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    Mute Dennis Laffey
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    Dec 23rd 2014, 12:50 PM

    It just shows the incredible instability of the housing market in general. If the rises were based on the real values of the houses then it would be a stable rise.

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    Mute #Wynner
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    Dec 23rd 2014, 1:38 PM

    Dublin is just one bug bubble go else where and see how low prices are.

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    Mute #Wynner
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    Dec 23rd 2014, 1:40 PM

    “BIG”. Damn autocorrect

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    Mute Mike
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    Dec 23rd 2014, 1:43 PM

    I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else in Ireland.

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    Mute ­
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    Dec 23rd 2014, 11:59 AM

    0.1%……

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    Mute Mike
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    Dec 23rd 2014, 1:05 PM

    Prices usually stabilise or a tiny fall like 0.1% this time of year. Let’s see will they continue to rise 15% plus in 2015.

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    Mute John McCormack
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    Dec 23rd 2014, 6:16 PM

    Hardly a massive fall 0.1% hopefully it will pick up again in the New Year.Think we’ve all had more than enough property drops since 2007,lets pump this bad boy up again to 2006 levels.

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    Mute Trevor Dunne
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    Dec 24th 2014, 1:04 AM

    This is hardly news, common sense that prices would fall in the weeks before the new Central Bank Mortgage Regulations come into play as sellers push to try and offload.

    They’ll continue to drop as the vast majority will no longer be able to afford to buy! It’s crippling potential buyers and also going to send rent prices even higher!

    The sooner it gets axed the better!

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