Donald Trump’s cuts to the US science budget matter to Ireland because nearly “everybody gets cancer or Alzheimer's” at some point in their lives, Luke O’Neill has argued.
As part of Mr Trump’s efforts to rein in public spending, the White House proposed cutting federal funding of science from $198 billion (€165 billion) to $154 billion (€129 billion) - the largest cut since the Second World War.
However, the US Senate Appropriations Committee has since published a number of bills that would see funding drop to €188 billion (€157 billion), a notably smaller reduction than the one advocated for by the Trump Administration.
On The Pat Kenny Show, Trinity Professor Luke O’Neill said there is a very good reason why Congressional Republicans decided to push back against the White House’s initial proposal.
“It's… because everybody gets cancer or Alzheimer's, if you know what I mean,” he said.
“So, they do see luckily enough, even though they mightn't be fully scientifically literate, they do see the value in the in this research and therefore that's another reason why they're defending us.”
The U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. Picture by: Graeme Sloan/Sipa USA. Professor O’Neill added that Republicans opposing Mr Trump amounted to a “quiet revolution” and credited their opposition to the cuts to “really effective” lobbying from their constituents.
“What happened was pretty quickly these 100 different disease advocacy groups and patients with different diseases came together,” he explained.
“They formed as you say this United for Cures Organisation and they began a massive lobbying campaign.
“Emails, phone calls, they were visiting Republican Congressman's offices, they invested in the big digital advertising campaign - just to remind people how important medical research was.
“And what strikes me is that we could take any part of that book in a way, we scientists should be lobbying like that in a way to remind the politicians how important what we do is.
“And they reckon that was a big part of this.”
Despite this, Professor O’Neill continued that another US Government shutdown could still put a significant amount of scientific work in jeopardy.
“It could get stalled for a while,” he warned.
“But of course the trouble is, if you stop funding science, it takes longer to get the thing going again.
“So, they're hoping they're gonna they're gonna make sure they keep the funding coming.”
Main image: Luke O'Neill and Donald Trump. Pictures by: Newstalk and AP.
