I urge you to support at least a 10% increase in the fiscal year 2010 
budget for the National Institutes of Health.

Leading economists, including Nobel laureate Paul Krugman, have observed 
that the magnitude of fiscal stimulus legislated in the American 
Reinvestment and Recovery Act will not suffice to carry the United States 
economy out of the doldrums.  Health research has been an important 
component of Recovery Act, and there is more to do.  A one-off impulse 
from the Recovery Act has been a help in arresting the decay of scientific 
research that took hold during the Bush government, but scientific 
research and the infrastructure that supports it take years to establish, 
and will wither in the absence of a SUSTAINED investment.  For both these 
reasons, economic and scientific, increasing the NIH budget is the right 
course of action.

In the long term, dollars invested in health research pay off in terms of 
enhanced longevity and productivity.  Investment in NIH this year, 
therefore, will help build the United States economy not only now but for 
many years in the future.