“Don’t Tax You, Don’t Tax Me, Tax That Feller Behind The Tree”

Katie Britt is too young to know how familiar this is:

“While the administration works to achieve this goal at NIH, a smart, targeted approach is needed in order to not hinder life-saving, groundbreaking research at high-achieving institutions like those in Alabama,” she told AL.com 

A few facts. The University of Alabama at Birmingham is the largest employer in the state. It gets more than a billion dollars a year from NIH funding. The head of the Birmingham Business Alliance is quoted saying the whole thing is super bad. Birmingham’s Mayor Randall Woodfin (D) also seems to be freaking out. Britt wouldn’t stop talking: “We can eliminate administrative bloat and waste while not losing our competitive edge to adversaries like Communist China. I look forward to working with incoming HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., to accomplish this vital mission and ensure our nation remains at the forefront of medical innovation, research, and patient care.” 

The University of Alabama at Huntsville is comparably reliant on NIH funding grants. And we’re certain to see similar outcries from Republican representatives in other states as they find out often from Republican stakeholders in their states about what the NIH cuts mean for them. Then the question is likely to move on to whether Trump can shift the question from one of across-the-board cuts to cuts that only target institutions in blue states or simply any institutions that don’t support Donald Trump.

Given Trump’s track record of the last few weeks, he’ll fold for every one of them. Besides, the more he targets blue states, the more Democrats are likely to retaliate.

But I’ve seen this movie before, and it always ends the same way: Republicans declare spending anywhere but in their state/district to be rife with fraud and abuse (it’s never “or” abuse, always “and.”). So cut “their “ funding, but keep mine.

The title is a quote from Huey Long. This has been going on at least since we were a Republic. The flip side of taxes is always spending: the former unpopular, the latter very popular. And one man’s “waste and abuse” is always another person’s valuable investment.