House Minority Whip Rep. Steny Hoyer (D., Md.) on Tuesday was called out by CNBC's Brian Sullivan when Hoyer accused President Donald Trump of cutting funding for medical research in his proposed budget.
Hoyer claimed that in the proposed budget, Trump cut the funding level for the National Institute of Health (NIH). However, the Trump administration's budget keeps funding for NIH at the same level and simply did not raise it to grow with inflation.
Sullivan said that nobody wanted to cut the funding, but Hoyer disagreed, claiming that Trump just did in his proposed budget.
"Well, you say that but the President has just proposed a $5.5 billion cut which is about a 15 percent cut in NIH," Hoyer claimed.
"Is that a cut or is that a decrease in forward spending over time?" Sullivan asked.
"Well it's a decrease, it's a decrease in forward spending, you're correct on that but it's a decrease in terms of effort because as inflation occurs obviously a dollar doesn't buy tomorrow or the next year or five years from now what it buys today," Hoyer said. "So, yes, okay, fine, nominally you have an increase, but if you have an increase of five cents and the product cost you another 15 cents you have a decrease."
This is not the first time critics have considered that retaining spending levels was actually a decrease. Critics were known to have considered the same with retaining the spending levels of Medicaid.