When House Speaker Mike Johnson reached a bipartisan agreement to prevent a government shutdown, the Louisiana Republican signed off on a variety of measures to be included in the year-end bill. This wasn’t much of a surprise: Not only did he need to get Democratic support for the bill, but many lawmakers in both parties saw the spending package as their last opportunity to advance key priorities before the end of the Congress.
The day after the bill was unveiled, GOP officials abandoned the bipartisan deal and got to work on a Republican-only alternative. Not surprisingly, they omitted Democratic priorities that Johnson had already agreed to.
But it’s worth appreciating what that means in practical terms.
The Bulwark’s Sam Stein, an MSNBC contributor, took a closer look at the list of provisions “left in the dust heap,” and it was not short. Included among the GOP’s cuts were all kinds of consumer protections, a bill to curtail deepfake pornography, restrictions on outbound U.S. investment in China, and a bill to secure semiconductor supply chains.
But some of the most notable provisions struck from the Republicans’ bill related to medical research. Stein’s report specifically referenced funding, scrapped from the GOP package, that was supposed to go towards combatting pediatric cancer. From The Bulwark’s report:
The slimmed-down version was stripped of language that would have allowed children with relapsed cancer to undergo treatments with a combination of cancer drugs and therapies. … The bill also didn’t include an extension of a program that gave financial lifelines, in the form of vouchers, to small pharmaceutical companies working on rare pediatric diseases. It was also missing earlier provisions that would have allowed for kids on Medicaid or CHIP—that is, poor children—to access medically complex care across state lines.
If this wasn’t quite enough, Stein’s report added that there was also funding for the Gabriella Miller Kids First Research Program — named after a 10-year-old Virginia girl who died from an inoperable brain tumor in 2013 — that helped to fund pediatric cancer research. It used to enjoy bipartisan support, and since it was up for reauthorization this year, no one was especially surprised when it was included in the continuing resolution earlier this week, ensuring that the program would continue for another decade.
When Republicans took out their editing pens, however, the program was removed. Stein talked to Nancy Goodman, the founder and executive director of Kids v. Cancer, who called it “a completely heart-wrenching outcome.”
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries wrote in a message published to Bluesky, “Republicans would rather cut taxes for billionaire donors than fund research for children with cancer. That is why our country is on the brink of a government shutdown.”
The New York Democrat concluded, “Welcome back to the MAGA swamp.”
I don’t imagine we’ve heard the last of this one.
