00:00Continuing our strong bipartisan work together
00:03Secretary Kennedy today. We are here to talk about your fiscal year
00:082026 budget request to Congress
00:11You run a department dedicated to improving the health and well-being of every American
00:16And these programs that you are responsible for administering touch the lives of all Americans at a critical moment in their lives from
00:25Research for life-saving cures and treatments for devastating diseases to eternal health care to child care to addressing substance use and mental health
00:36You've repeatedly pledged that you would run the department with I quote radical transparency
00:44While this is a great catchphrase it could not be further from the reality that we're experiencing right now as we talked about yesterday as
00:52As required by law a few weeks ago the department sent this committee a plan for how it will be how it will be spending
01:01Appropriated funds this year under the CR
01:05But instead of providing Congress and the American people with any
01:09Information about how the department is spending tens of billions of taxpayer dollars
01:14There are only asterisks in place of spending levels for over
01:20five hundred and thirty programs in no other job under the Sun can you essentially leave blank how you are spending
01:29billions of dollars this is flatly unacceptable when we are talking about taxpayer dollars and the people I represent deserve better
01:39You are undertaking a massive and
01:43disruptive overhaul of the department
01:45You are shutting entire offices down and firing thousands of experts your plan for all of this that you've provided to Congress is little more than one page long and
01:58That shows the chaos that this is creating
02:03I'm assuming today you're going to reiterate talking points about how you are consolidating offices and eliminating
02:09Duplicative functions
02:12Secretary Kennedy this is a genuine request please sit down and talk to us in detail
02:19About what you are doing have your staff talk with our staff on both sides of the political aisle about your plans for the department
02:27And what you are doing right now
02:30For a department this important anything less is simply not acceptable
02:35Let me turn to what is what is what it is that we do know about your budget request and what is happening at the Department of Health and Human Services
02:46your fiscal year 2026 but
02:50to the National Institutes of Health of
02:5418 billion dollars
02:56That would have a devastating impact on research into life safety life-saving cures and treatments for devastating diseases
03:05Setting back medical innovations by decades it would push the brightest scientific minds to work in other countries
03:14It would seed our leadership in biomedical research to China
03:19It would also take away hope from millions of American families for the family receiving a
03:26devastating diagnosis of pediatric cancer like Charlie and her mom Emily who spoke to this committee last month
03:33It would mean less hope for Jesse a veteran and a father with ALS and his son Dewey who wants his dad to see him
03:42Graduate from high school it would mean less help and less time
03:47This budget says a lot about the priorities of this administration and normally I would I
03:54Could I guess disregarded as only a request
03:57But it provides insight into what you're doing right now in fiscal year 2025 at the same time you are submitting this request you are actively stopping
04:09Billions of dollars in NIH funding for life-saving research including on cancer and Alzheimer's disease
04:16You are implementing changes right now that are ripping away hope and life-saving cures from American families
04:23If you aren't already I think this administration is heading down the road of the illegally impounding funding
04:31funding across HHS
04:33Mr. Secretary your budget
04:36request also cuts funding for
04:38CDC in half
04:41Today you will allude to consolidating programs into a new
04:46Administration for healthy America
04:48America, but you can't just slash funding fire everyone slap a slogan on a new agency and say that work will continue in
04:58Previous years I would have called this only a proposal reassured by the fact that Congress would reject it and rewrite our own
05:06But this year right now you are dismantling CDC
05:11Seemingly in line with your budget request
05:15Congress did not approve that
05:17On a bipartisan basis Congress funded the CDC to administer programs that provide critical public health support to states and local communities across the country
05:30That includes the CDC childhood lead poisoning program
05:34When the city of Milwaukee asked CDC for help addressing a lead crisis in schools
05:40CDC should be able to provide support and assistance because Congress appropriated
05:4751 million dollars for CDC to do its job to address lead poisoning
05:54Despite what you told me last week that you have no intention of eliminating this program
05:59You fired the entire office responsible for carrying it out
06:04So CDC told Milwaukee public schools that they simply couldn't help
06:10Your decision to fire staff and eliminate offices is endangering children
06:15including thousands of children in Milwaukee if you have a proposal to make these programs work better
06:22present it and
06:24justify it
06:25Mr. Secretary you will say that you have
06:28That you have to fire thousands of employees and eliminate programs like lie heap because our deficit is too large
06:37But you won't mention that at the same time this administration is proposing these cuts
06:42It's proposing tax cuts for billionaires that will add trillions to our debt
06:49You are cutting programs and firing staff with no plan and no understanding of what the department
06:55You are leading even does for the American people and that's why you had to rehire staff
07:01Working on the World Trade Center health program and screening coal miners for black lung disease
07:08You fired everyone and now you want to take credit for hiring them back?
07:13That's not how this works
07:16Congress provided over 360 million dollars on a bipartisan basis for NIOSH
07:22You eliminated the entire safe to sleep program that the Eunice Kennedy Shriver Institute at the unit Eunice credit the
07:32Shriver Institute safe to sleep is one of the most successful
07:37Child safety campaigns in history that prevents
07:401500 babies from dying each year at a time when we are seeing rates of SIDS
07:47starting to climb
07:49Without staff these programs are meaningless and this is happening across HHS I could go on and on
07:58About how this administration's careless and reckless approach is hurting the people of Wisconsin and this country
08:05These are just a few examples
08:09Mr.. Secretary this committee has worked in a bipartisan manner to improve child care options for working families
08:17Address the substance use disorder crisis support seniors and people with disabilities
08:23So that they can live in their communities and to make the United States the leader in
08:29biomedical innovation
08:31You're implement implementing changes right now that are dismantling our progress and you're hiding it from Congress and the American people
08:40People we don't need to just reject this budget request we need to reject what's happening at HHS right now
08:48We need to do that before you have caused irreparable harm
08:52At the department and the programs that administers that millions of Americans rely on I yield back
09:00Thank you
09:02Secretary Kennedy we welcome
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