Dear Editor:

Here’s a good idea for our current administration: Indiscriminately cut or eliminate federal funding for biomedical research and international healthcare programs, based purely on ideological grounds.

After all, ideological thinking and policy making protect the agendas of campaign contributors and lobbyists. They are extremely efficient; just scan for prohibited words in mission statements, then outsource budgeting authority to a multibillionaire and his twenty-year-old tech bros. Promises made, promises kept.

Be sure to ignore the inconvenient truth that every dollar spent on research funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) returns at least $2.56 to the American economy.

Dismiss as “fake news” the fact that in 2024, the $36.9 billion invested by NIH in academic research centers, private corporations, startups and non-profit organizations supported 408,000 jobs and generated $94.5 billion in new economic activity nationwide. These Congressionally-approved funds benefited each one of the fifty states.

Deny the fact that these grants provided the seven most rural states with $383 million in new revenue and 2,300 jobs.

Have the courage to cut 30% of the NIH budget and eliminate USAID. Think of the waste involved in research focused on mental health, cancer, and diabetes! And the fraud of USAID and CDC’s claims that, together with US-funded public-private health programs, 19 million children’s lives have been saved worldwide since 2000! Each of these lives cost $1,000 — a clear abuse of the huge portion (0.2%) of the federal budget allocated for this mission!

Even though American “soft power” strengthens our national security and improves global opinion of the United States by 19% more than our international military presence, we must increase our defense spending to over a trillion dollars and abandon the personnel, food, and medical supplies we have provided to 100 countries around the world.

Let’s break these eggs to make the MAGA omelette!

Bill Hammond

Boothbay