NIH Director Francis Collins – Smash hit “Sequester Blues”

Pumping Congress to find a way to wipe away the sequester cuts, or at the very least exempt NIH or restore funding another way, has become an important part of NIH Director Francis Collins’ job, which also includes singing the blues about the sequestration.

Collins says he has probably personally visited with more than 100 members of Congress in the last year, at NIH’s headquarters or down on Capitol Hill, as part of his campaign to combat sequestration.

He says it doesn’t matter which party he meets with on the Hill, they agree that the NIH funding cuts should be done away with. But then they tell him that there is nothing they can do, because of the “national impasse” over government spending and the deficit.