Budgeting is one of the strategies that the government is using to achieve its agendas. Therefore, in the 2017 budget proposal, Trump’s administration requested the lawmakers reduce the government budget for the National Institute of Health (NIH) to increase money for defense and national security (Pear, 2017). However, Trump received an unintended outcome as the lawmakers rejected his proposal. On the contrary, the legislatures ended up increasing the spending on biochemical research, which was also be reduced. Although both Democratic and Republican legislatures supported the changes in the budget proposal, politics also played out (Pear, 2017). Lawmakers knew that health is a sensitive matter to the electorates and reducing the budget for NIH would make them politically unpopular among voters. Hence, politics, to some extent, influenced the decisions of lawmakers.
However, it is not likely that the “pork” spending budget amendment affected the legislation. The decisions of lawmakers were mainly influenced by the fact that fighting diseases and assisting patients, which are the primary functions of NIH is critical to the health and well-being of Americans (Pear, 2017). The legislation was mainly made to meet the needs of the people and to optimize the use of public revenue (Lee & Johnson, 2008). Hence, the decision was largely aimed at serving the interest of the people and not that of politicians. Besides, the decision was not aimed at benefiting specific lawmakers. Therefore, “pork” spending did not affect the legislation.
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Finally, the mid-year crisis or change in revenue expectations did not significantly impact the budget legislation action. The primary objective of reducing the budget for NIH was to divert some money to security and security issues in the country (Pear, 2017). At the same time, the legislature made the decision based on the importance of health in the society. The country was not under any economic crisis when the decisions were made.
References
Lee, R.D. & Johnson, RW. (2008). Public budgeting systems (8th ed.). Sudbury, MA: Jones and Bartlett.
Pear, R. (2017, September 11). Congress Rejects Trump Proposals to Cut Health Research Funds. The New York Times . Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/11/us/politics/national- institutes-of-health-budget-trump.html
