September 4, 2003
Betraying the Sick in Africa
here is an old joke about a man who kills his parents and then begs the court for mercy because he is an orphan. For such chutzpah on a global scale, consider President Bush's overseas AIDS initiative. In his last State of the Union address, the president announced a new program to fight AIDS in Africa and pledged $15 billion over the next five years. But instead of using existing channels, Mr. Bush created a new bureaucracy. Now the White House and Congressional Republicans argue that since the bureaucracy is not ready, dying patients must wait.
The Senate is scheduled to vote soon on an appropriations bill that contains $2 billion for the AIDS initiative — only $500 million more than this year's spending. The House has approved even less. This is the White House's doing. It is twisting arms to get Congress to cut its own program. The House and Senate had authorized $3 billion for next year.
This undercutting of trumpeted compassion initiatives is a habit with the president because of his devotion to tax cuts for the wealthy. But officials are arguing that AIDS money cannot be spent wisely because the office of the AIDS coordinator — and Africa — is not ready.
Both assertions are nonsense. The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria is besieged with excellent vetted proposals from African nations desperate to fight AIDS. Multiple billions could be effectively spent on AIDS prevention and treatment and help for orphans. And countries that lack the ability to run good programs need money to build that capacity. But the Global Fund is too broke to help. If the administration cannot overcome its mysterious distaste for this organization, it could simply take some of the country proposals and finance them directly.
Senator Richard Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, is proposing to restore the full $3 billion. The Senate should adopt this amendment, then prevail upon the House. Several top Republicans, including President Bush and the Senate majority leader, Bill Frist, have recently been to Africa, where they hugged orphans and visited the dying. If they break America's promise on AIDS, they will be cynically using suffering Africans as nothing more than a photo opportunity.
nytimes.com
Rascal @AnybodySurprised?.com |
