Contrary to popular opinion, even at a time when we’re seeing bitter division between America’s political parties (and within the GOP itself), bipartisanship is alive and well in Congress. And that means that something else that’s very big and bad is also alive and well: Big spending, and minimal cutting.

Here’s the latest example, courtesy of The Hill:

The National Institutes of Health would receive a funding boost of about $2 billion in this year’s Senate health spending bill, according to a source familiar with the negotiations.

This year’s spending bill, which will be publicly released Tuesday, would grow the agency’s total budget to about $34 billion, the source said.

The boost to the NIH’s funding is the result of bipartisan negotiations between Sen. Roy Blunt(R-Mo.), who leads the Senate subcommittee on health funding, and his counterpart, Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.).

Surprise, surprise. Both of these senators are “in cycle,” so more spending is on the agenda. Meanwhile, the national debt continues to mount.

Blunt, for his part, sent out a press release touting the increased spending noting that 36 ineffective or duplicative programs were eliminated as part of this endeavor. That’s good. However, the total amount going to NIH went up all the same, and there’s no indicator that any steps were taken to eliminate the use of taxpayer money— i.e., your and my cash— on things like the now-infamous test to “discover” that male rats like ejaculating (clearly a major priority for struggling families across the country).

Increasing NIH funding is one of those things that sounds good, kind of like being for Mom and apple pie. The problem is, there’s a ton of waste within NIH and it should all be zeroed out before any actual boost in funding takes place.

Bipartisan “leaders” in Congress have little interest in that, though— they just want the headlines saying they’re for curing alzheimer’s, even while they blow your money on proving that monkeys on crack act like monkeys on crack. Or that male animals of any species like ejaculating.