Biden HHS secretary slams Trump NIH cuts: 'It's a demolition plan'
Former Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra decried the Trump administration's "skinny budget" request unveiled Friday, lambasting it as not a budget proposal but a "demolition plan."
In the proposal, President Trump called for cutting $33.3 billion or 26.2 percent of the HHS's discretionary funding. These requested cuts included a $3.6 billion reduction in discretionary funding for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, $18 billion for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and $674 million for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Program Management.
"This isn’t a budget proposal – it’s a demolition plan. Slashing $33 billion in NIH funding and cratering public health research is an assault on our nation’s ability to prepare for and respond to disease, medical innovation and everyday care that millions of Americans rely on," Becerra wrote on social platform X.
Last month, he launched his campaign for California governor, citing his tenure as HHS secretary as well as his record of taking on Trump when he was California attorney general.
The Oval Office asked to cut the funding of several programs that it said promoted diversity, equity and inclusion and "radical gender ideology."
The only health program that gains discretionary funding in the proposal is HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) Commission, for which the budget provides $500 million.
In fiscal 2025, the last budget under the Biden administration, the HHS ultimately received $127 billion in discretionary funding. The Biden White House had requested s $130.7 billion in discretionary budget authority.
The Trump administration proposal would give the HHS $93.8 billion in discretionary funding.
Sen. Susan Collins (Maine) was among the Republicans who pushed back on the asks in the budget, citing the proposed cuts to the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, operated under the HHS, as one of requests she took issue with along with "those that support biomedical research."