Date: Wed, 4 Feb 1998 15:01:41 -0500
From: belmonte@cns.nyu.edu (Matthew Belmonte)
To: senator@dpm.senate.gov, senator_al@damato.senate.gov
Subject: S. 1305

One bill and several supporting resolutions pending in the Senate would double
research funding for the National Institutes of Health over the next decade.
S. 1305, the National Research Investment Act of 1998, would apply part of the
United States' current economic windfall to biomedical research funding.  In
addition, S. Res. 170 and S. Res. 15 call for an immediate increase and an
eventual doubling of the NIH budget.  While I am in general a fiscal
conservative, I believe that investment in biomedical research will cut public
expenses in the long run.

In my work in neurological research, I've seen many worthy proposals turned
down for lack of funds during the climate of austerity of the past few years.
That climate has created two problems.  First, the quality of scientific
research in the United States has been damaged as young scientists have fled to
the surer fields of private industry.  Second, the public health problems that
might have been addressed by such research have continued to loom, and the
treatment bills that such problems are bound to incur far exceed the expenses
of research.  Those bills end up being passed along to all of us in the form of
higher insurance costs and higher taxes for Medicare.

I hope that you'll consider co-sponsoring this important bill and the two
resolutions.