Few areas match the potential to build broad bipartisan agreement of medical research.
Americans strongly support it. An overwhelming share of major members of Congress, from fiscal hawks like John McCain and Pete Domenici to liberals like Paul Wellstone and Henry Waxman, have endorsed the plan to double the NIH budget, a plan proposed in 1998's State of the Union message by President Clinton. If lawmakers have their own pet projects or areas of research, nearly all believe both that research in general is valuable to the society and an appropriate venue for the involvement of the federal government. But while funding has increased significantly in the past few years, the money has not come close to matching the mouths of the members-and is not likely to in the foreseeable future. One reason, of course, is budgetary.