During Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s latest trip to Capitol Hill, he ostensibly made himself available to answer questions about his department’s proposed budget, which went about as well as expected. There was one part of the beleaguered secretary’s pitch, however, that stood out for me.
Democratic Rep. Lizzie Fletcher of Texas, for example, pressed Kennedy on proposed cuts to the National Institutes of Health’s budget and the adverse consequences of such a move. He replied, “I don’t want to cut NIH programs, [White House Budget Director] Russ Vought doesn’t want to cut NIH programs; but we have a $39 trillion debt … and so we’re making cuts that are painful. Some of those are going to be at NIH.”
Also on Tuesday, Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington pressed Kennedy on budget issues, noting the White House proposed slashing funding for preschool programs by $315 million.
“We’re asking about this because we have a $39 trillion debt that somebody else ran up, not this president,” Kennedy replied.
At this point, it’s tempting to try to explain to Kennedy that Trump added nearly $8 trillion to the national debt during his first term, and he added an additional $1.8 trillion during the first year of his second term. For the HHS secretary to suggest “somebody else” ran up the debt was obviously foolish.
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But even putting that aside, it was hard not to wonder whether Kennedy appreciated the larger context surrounding his testimony.
Right around the same time the HHS secretary was defending “painful” cuts, other Trump administration officials, who are apparently far less concerned about the $39 trillion national debt, proposed an additional $441 billion in new spending for the Pentagon, as part of a $1.5 trillion fiscal 2026 budget request for the military, during an unnecessary war that’s costing tens of billions of dollars.
Simultaneously, Senate Republicans on Tuesday also advanced a proposal to spend an additional $70 billion on immigration enforcement through the remainder of Trump’s term.
In other words, Trump, Kennedy and their colleagues don’t have to slash investments in priorities such as medical research and preschool programs — funding totals that would represent a tiny fraction of the $1.5 trillion the administration wants to spend on the military — in order to address the national debt. They’re choosing to do so, as part of a budget that makes no meaningful effort to address the national debt at all.
Kennedy should’ve known this before showing up on Capitol Hill for budget hearings. The fact that he displayed such ignorance anyway spoke volumes.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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