The original larded-up continuing resolution died a well-deserved death, thanks in part to pressure from Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy of the newly created Department of Government Efficiency.
So now, as one would expect, the Democrats are complaining about what’s been taken out of the slimmed-down package that’s hit the House floor — and their biggest shot has been that Republicans are blocking funding for pediatric cancer research.
However, does that pass the fact-check smell test? Let’s look at the accusations from the left and what the realities are.
The outrage began after an article in The Bulwark — a moderate-quasi-conservative publication that, in general, exists primarily to oppose anything President-elect Donald Trump and his allies are for.
Looking at the slimmed-down bill after the larded-up version failed once the DOGE set caught onto the breadth of its provisions, Sam Stein, writing at the Bulwark, claimed that conservatives were making children with cancer “collateral damage.”
Stein wrote that “the most striking absence in the revised bill was the language that would have extended funding for the Gabriella Miller Kids First Research Program.”
“The program, named after a 10-year-old Virginia girl who died from an inoperable brain tumor in 2013, was something of a miracle to begin with. When it passed in 2014, the Obama administration and congressional Republicans had been at a standstill over federal spending. Sequestration cuts had taken a big bite out of the budget of the National Institutes of Health. The $126 million that the bill authorized over a ten-year period to help fund pediatric cancer research was minor compared to the $1.55 billion the NIH had lost in appropriations. But it was also the product of painstaking negotiations, with then-House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) expending significant political capital to ensure that the law got passed.”
“But the funding needed to be extended. And the bill that the current crop of congressional leaders agreed to earlier this week did just that, devoting an estimated $190 million to the program through 2033. … By December 19, the provision had been axed from the bill, after Musk went on an X rampage, tweeting that the bill was a Christmas tree that was antithetical to conservative, small-government ambitions and threatening the primary lawmakers who supported it.”
This was heartbreaking stuff that crossed over from political media to mainstream media. MSNBC’s report on the new bill: “Stein’s report specifically referenced funding, scrapped from the GOP package, that was supposed to go towards combating pediatric cancer.”
Should the continuing resolution have been passed?
“If this wasn’t quite enough, Stein’s report added that there was also funding for the Gabriella Miller Kids First Research Program — named after a 10-year-old Virginia girl who died from an inoperable brain tumor in 2013 — that helped to fund pediatric cancer research. It used to enjoy bipartisan support, and since it was up for reauthorization this year, no one was especially surprised when it was included in the continuing resolution earlier this week, ensuring that the program would continue for another decade.
“When Republicans took out their editing pens, however, the program was removed. Stein talked to Nancy Goodman, the founder and executive director of Kids v. Cancer, who called it ‘a completely heart-wrenching outcome.’
“House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries wrote in a message published to Bluesky, ‘Republicans would rather cut taxes for billionaire donors than fund research for children with cancer. That is why our country is on the brink of a government shutdown.’”
And here was Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren on CNN, repeating mostly the same stuff with fewer details attached:
Elizabeth Warren repeats the lie that @elonmusk and Republicans blocked funding for child cancer research.
A stand alone bill for child cancer research funding passed the Republican controlled House in March and got held up in the Democrat controlled Senate.
Democrats blocked… pic.twitter.com/ISLi32YAcA
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) December 20, 2024
Yes, Elon Musk sacrificed children with cancer on a pyre, “so that we can make way for tax cuts for billionaires,” so sayeth Warren.
There’s a slight problem with this: If the Democrats wanted to extend the Gabriella Miller Kids First Research Program, they could have. Because the Republicans passed a bill in the House in March that would have provided funding for it through fiscal year 2028.
The problem? Chuck Schumer’s Senate refuses to take it up, because they apparently consider it that unimportant — until it becomes a talking point:
You know that $190M of funding for pediatric cancer research that Democrats have spent the last day on their high horse about with the CR?
Turns out it passed the Republican led House as a stand-alone bill last March but went nowhere in Chuck Schumer’s Senate. pic.twitter.com/TbaifGJrwf
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) December 20, 2024
It wasn’t just Republicans, mind you; the bill was passed 384 to 4 in the House, with the only four dissenters being libertarian-leaning and/or budget-hawk Republicans. Virtually everyone else was on board, though, so these votes were mostly symbolic.
The day after the March 5 vote, it was received in the Senate. Two days later, H.R. 3391 was “[r]ead twice and referred to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions,” where it has been stuck.
Moreover, the summary makes it clear this isn’t especially contentious stuff: “This bill reauthorizes through FY2028 a pediatric disease research initiative within the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and requires the NIH to coordinate pediatric research activities to avoid duplicative efforts. Additionally, the Department of Health and Human Services must report to Congress about research funded through the initiative.”
Instead, given the slam-dunk nature of this research money, one could almost argue premeditation here: Instead of merely reauthorizing the program as a standalone bill, it was attached to a wide-ranging continuing resolution that gave the outgoing Democratic White House and Senate majority most of the things they wanted with virtually no concessions to the GOP.
However, that’s an a priori assumption of malice and forethought, absent actual proof. Granted, there’s just as much proof that Republicans are dead-set on cutting pediatric cancer research programs to fund tax cuts for the wealthy — which is to say zero — as there is for that hypothesis, and partisan media and the Democrats seem to have taken this ugly cudgel up.
The facts remain, however: If the Democrats wish for the Gabriella Miller Kids First Research Program to be extended and extended posthaste, the ball is in their court. It has been for months now. To insinuate otherwise doesn’t pass the fact-check smell test.
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