Mitt Romney would eliminate duplicate programs and waste in the Department of Health and Human Services to increase cancer research funding, said Romney spokesperson Alex Burgos.
He declined to speculate on which agencies Romney would target to offset the increase in cancer research funding, noting that he has not drawn up a budget.
But Romney has talked about healthcare reform that would curtail Medicare and Medicaid spending, and he has criticized the Medicare Prescription Drug Plan. So the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services may be a prime candidate for "waste reduction."
In an ad, Romney said he would vetoany non-defense discretionary spending bill passed by Congress that exceeded a cap of inflation minus 1 percent, which got me wondering how he would fund the research after he joined several other Presidential candidates in wanting to "reignite the War on Cancer."
It's possible, however, to avoid cutting Medicare and Medicaid funding.
If under a Romney administration Congress wanted to avoid cuts there or raise funding for the Department of Health and Human Services (which houses both the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the National Institutes of Health) beyond the cap, it could cut or maintain spending levels in other non-defense departments and lump them all together in an omnibus spending bill with an average spending increase of "inflation minus 1 percent."
