Key Vote YES on the Brat Amendment to the 21st Century Cures Act

As one of our over 6.9 million FreedomWorks activists nationwide, I urge you to contact your representative and ask him or her to vote YES on the Brat amendment to the 21st Century Cures Act, H.R. 6. This amendment would make new funding for the NIH and Cures Innovation Fund discretionary, instead of the mandatory spending now proposed.

With our nation over 18 trillion in debt, and no sign of fiscal responsibility from Congress, the last thing we need is more mandatory spending that will end up bankrupting us. We will never dig ourselves out of this hole by continuing the policies that have led to our nearly bankrupt entitlement programs. By putting spending on autopilot, it becomes increasingly difficult for Congress to exercise fiscal restraint and balance the federal budget. This amendment, offered by Rep. Dave Brat, maintains accountability for this $1.86 billion spending program by making it discretionary rather than mandatory.

The federal government should not be authorizing new spending for scientific or health-related research at all, as such things are better handled by private markets, but designating such spending as mandatory makes the problem far worse. The Brat amendment corrects one of the worst things about a bad bill, and for this reason we encourage Members of the House of Representatives to support it.

Please contact your representative and ask that he or she vote YES on the Brat amendment to the 21st Century Cures Act, H.R. 6. FreedomWorks will count the vote on this amendment as a Key Vote when calculating our Congressional Scorecard for 2015. The scorecard is used to determine eligibility for the FreedomFighter Award, which recognizes Members of Congress who consistently vote to support economic freedom and individual liberty.

Sincerely,
Adam Brandon
CEO
FreeedomWorks