Lawmakers Seem Unlikely To Back RFK's $16 Billion Cuts to HHS
As Robert F. Kennedy Jr. defends his HHS budget, the modest cuts suggest shrinking government isn’t his real priority.
Over the last week, Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been defending his proposed budget for FY 2027 on Capitol Hill. Most lawmakers aren't happy.
The budget seeks to cut HHS' spending by 12.5 percent, or $15.8 billion, from FY 2026 levels. The largest named programmatic reduction is for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which would see a $5 billion cut in spending (though its budget would still be roughly $41 billion), reducing the number of institutes and centers from 27 to 22. The proposed budget also calls for the elimination of the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, saving $4 billion, and consolidating several health offices into a new Administration for a Healthy America (AHA), which the HHS says will save $5 billion.
Kennedy defended this reorganization by telling the Senate Health, Labor, and Pensions Committee on Wednesday that when he came into office, HHS "had nine separate offices for women's health, eight separate offices for minority health, 27 separate HIV programs, 59 behavioral health programs, 40 separate opioid programs, 42 maternal health programs, 41 chief information officers, 100 communications offices, 40 procurement departments, and dozens of IT departments. None of them talking to each other. And so it was a target-rich environment for reorganization to streamline the agency and make it more efficient."
Ignoring the potential efficiency gains that these changes might bring, several lawmakers over the past week have decried the proposed budget. Sen. Patty Murray (D–Wash.) said cutting funding to NIH research will mean "delayed cures…cancelled studies…[and] no hope for patients who are fighting for their lives."
Last week, Rep. Richard Neal (D–Mass.) told Kennedy that "the cuts that are being proposed to these initiatives are not helpful to the American family." Similarly, Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D–Conn.), the ranking member of the House Appropriations Committee, said "We are not going to do that," after listing some of the HHS's proposed spending cuts.
This trepidation is unsurprising. Lawmakers have long argued that less federal spending on public health automatically leads to worse health outcomes, and that Washington's current footprint is necessary and effective.
"Every time someone advocates a government activity…they say this is going to save lives. Almost never do they provide evidence establishing that," Michael Cannon, director of Health Policy Studies at the Cato Institute, tells Reason. "Very little that HHS does…is morally defensible, constitutional, and net beneficial to society."
Indeed, federally funded research is a relatively recent phenomenon. Before World War II, the federal government only financed about one-fifth of the nation's research and development. The private sector led several successful research projects, including the discovery of a yellow fever vaccine. Today, the private sector still plays a leading role in financing the nation's R&D, which has led to groundbreaking results in stem cell research and treatments for pancreatic cancer.
But over time, HHS has significantly expanded its size and involvement in people's everyday lives. As HHS has grown, so too has the national debt, which is one reason why Kennedy is proposing these cuts. As he explained last week: "Nobody wants to cut NIH funding. I don't want to cut it….But somehow, we've got to tighten our belt in order to save our kids" from the impending cost of the national debt, which stands at $31 trillion held by the public.
Unfortunately, Kennedy's proposed budget cuts barely make a dent; as spending would go down in certain areas, other programs would see their line items increase. This includes spending on nutrition services (which would go up by $19 million), food safety and chemical regulation ($57 million), and infection prevention and food safety programs ($55 million).
As Cannon points out, Kennedy's penchant for less government intrusion and "Don't tread on me" freedom, which was on display last week during a heated exchange about raw milk contaminants, is often applied sporadically, rather than universally. "His priorities do not seem to be reducing the size of government."
Ultimately, it will be up to Congress to enact any of these proposed cuts. This seems unlikely, given the hostility of these hearings, which have shown just how difficult it is to reduce the size of the state. For now, even modest cuts in spending are proving too much for Congress to handle.