Since taking office in 2021, President Joe Biden has been spending money like he’s printing it in the basement. Now, his giddy check-writing days are coming back to bite him.

On the chopping block: funding for Biden’s “Cancer Moonshot,” his ambitious program to end cancer as we know it.

It’s a laudable ambition, one that could impact millions of Americans and their families fighting the deadly disease.

It’s an expensive enterprise, as one would expect. Unfortunately, it’s just one of the Biden Administration’s costly enterprises.

Money for the Cures Act dried up at the end of 2023, and budget-minded lawmakers have hit the brakes on Biden’s request for a fresh infusion of money.

As Politico reported, the fight is drawn across party lines.

“When you’re running a $1.6 trillion deficit, spending cuts aren’t the problem,” said Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), the new chair of the House Appropriations Committee. “We’ve been very generous,” he added, referencing the hundreds of millions in funding since the Cures law passed.

The moonshot is important, Cole said, but the magnitude of the deficit requires tough choices and compromise on entitlement costs that Democrats aren’t willing to make.

The response from across the aisle: “Actions have consequences. Arbitrarily calling for spending cuts means the money will come from somewhere,” Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.), who with former Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) spearheaded the Cures law in 2016, told Politico in an email. “It is a shame we cannot find more funding for cancer research and that this work will be impacted by partisan efforts to slash spending.”

One could make the case that this is a “get-Biden” move on the part of Republicans, had then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) not called it “the most significant legislation passed by this Congress.”

The cancer moonshot was backed by lawmakers in both parties, and Biden is doing a fine job on his own of turning off the electorate. A Friday Gallup poll found that Biden is the least popular president at this point of his tenure in the last 70 years.

“With about six months remaining before Election Day, Biden stands in a weaker position than any prior incumbent,” the pollsters concluded.

Republicans don’t have to do anything at this point to undermine Biden, he’s doing just fine all by himself.

And ignoring the ballooning deficit isn’t going to make it go away. What Biden needs  — and has always needed  — is a grasp of priorities.

Spending billions on forgiving student loans and enriching climate initiatives helped spur the national debt to $34 trillion. A wish list is not the same as a mandate, and Biden and the Democrats can’t push every progressive agenda item to the front of the funding line.

A $34 trillion deficit isn’t sustainable, and it won’t dissipate by borrowing more money. There should be enough to fund the Cancer Moonshot, but that cash will have to come from cutting something.

Biden has to make some choices: is it better to secure funding to fight cancer, or to woo young voters by forgiving billions of dollars in student loan debt?

His decision will have an impact long after Nov. 5.

Editorial cartoon by Gary Varvel (Creators Syndicate)