Bush Cuts AIDs Prevention Funds In 06 Budget; Abstinence Programs Get Boost (GO BUSH!!)

NATIONAL NEWS | washingtonblade.com Bush cuts AIDS prevention funds in '06 budget Abstinence programs would see $38 million boost By LOU CHIBBARO JR. Feb. 11, 2005

The proposed 2006 budget that President Bush submitted to Congress this week calls for cutting funds for federal AIDS prevention and surveillance programs by $4 million, a development that drew sharp criticism from AIDS activists.

Activists said they were especially concerned that the proposed cuts came at the same time the president is calling for a $38 million increase in programs aimed at curtailing AIDS and teen pregnancy by promoting sexual abstinence until marriage. "Programs which focus on abstinence as the sole means of preventing HIV/AIDS put our young people at tremendous risk," said David Smith, an official with the Human Rights Campaign, a national gay political group that lobbies Congress on AIDS.

Smith and other gay and AIDS activists said abstinence-only programs, which ban discussion of safer-sex procedures such as condom use, are harmful to gay youth who can't marry and often don't have access to information about AIDS.

The Bush budget calls for a $10 million increase in funding for the AIDS Drug Assistance Program, or ADAP, which provides life-sustaining AIDS drugs to low income people who don't have private health insurance. But the president's budget calls for no additional funds for all other parts of the Ryan White CARE, the sweeping federal statute that created ADAP and other programs to provide care and treatment to low-income people with HIV and AIDS. Flat funding is a cut

Activists said the proposed "flat funding" of Ryan White programs is equivalent to a cut in funds because of rising costs in medical care and the growing number of people with HIV and AIDS in the United States.

The president's call for cutting the Medicaid program by an average of $4.5 billion a year over the next decade will create even more hardship for low-income people with HIV, activists said. Medicaid serves as the single largest provider of medical care to people with AIDS in the U.S.

Although the president mentioned how AIDS has hit minority communities the hardest in his Sate of the Union speech, he proposed no additional funding for the government's Minority AIDS Initiative, a program that targets African Americans and other communities of color for AIDS prevention and treatment efforts.

The budget submitted to Congress by Bush also proposes a $14 million cut in the Housing Opportunities for People With AIDS, or HOPWA, program. The program provides housing subsidies for low-income people with HIV or AIDS.

In his budget message to Congress, Bush said he was initiating a 1 percent cut in spending on discretionary domestic programs in an effort to reduce the federal budget deficit by one-half by 2009.

"It meets our nation's essential needs," he said. A statement released by the White House notes that the president's budget calls for spending more than $17 billion for domestic AIDS "treatment, prevention, and research, including almost $21 million for Ryan White programs and its comprehensive approach to address the health needs of persons living with HIV/AIDS."

The White House statement stressed that the 2006 budget would continue to fund Bush's $15 billion global AIDS relief program, which calls for spending that amount over a five-year period.

"The president's 2006 budget proposal supports the status quo, but what is really necessary at this juncture is an infusion of cash similar to what we saw with the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief: real money and swift action," the national AIDS advocacy group AIDS Action said in a statement. Christopher Labonte, HRC's legislative director, said HRC would join gay and AIDS groups to call on Congress to add more funds to the AIDS programs that Bush wants to cut. Labonte said HRC was hopeful that Congress would at least restore the cuts Bush is proposing for AIDS prevention programs run by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention. "We have to be clear that the president's message of compassion about AIDS in his State of the Union address was not reflected in his budget," Labonte said.

Gay Republican activist Carl Schmid, who lobbies Congress on behalf of the AIDS Institute, a national group based in Florida, said the group was disappointed in the president's funding proposals on AIDS.

"They say they want to decrease the number of infections, but they are decreasing the funding on prevention," Schmid said. "We obviously need more money in prevention."

NATIONAL NEW S | washingtonblade.comBush cuts AIDS prevention funds in '06 budget Abstinen ce programs would see $38 million boostBy LOU CHIBBARO JR. Feb. 11, 2005The propose d 2006 budget that President Bush submitted to Congress th is week calls for cut ting funds for federal AIDS prevention and surveillance program s by $4 million,

snip..Smith and other gay and AIDS activists said abstinence-only programs, which ban discussion of safer-sex procedures such as condom use, are harmful to gay youth who can't marry and often don't have access to information about AIDS.

So in other words, if 'gay youth' could get married AIDs wouldn't be a problem? Anyone care to decipher the meaning of this garbled mess?

There is no right to happiness, let alone happiness through sex. It's way past time for these 'gays' to zip their pants and keep them zipped.

3 posted on 02/11/2005 10:40:53 AM PST by atomicpossum (I am the Cat that walks by himself, and all places are alike to me.)

To them abstinence is an antiquated notion not practicable in the liberated millenium.

I agree with you. He's focusing on a program that if practiced can cut people infected by AIDS.

TRANSLATION: People won't know anything about AIDS unless you pay me to tell them about it.

Why would I want to curtail sex until marriage? Thats when most of us guys get cut off. At least that was my experience, especially after the kids arrived. Then I was sent to the bottom of the totem pole.

"The budget submitted to Congress by Bush also proposes a $14 million cut in the Housing Opportunities for People With AIDS, or HOPWA, program. The program provides housing subsidies for low-income people with HIV or AIDS."

$14 mil is a pittance anyway, so I guess that means we'll hear Bush being called a Nazi soon.

There are lots of state programs for this kind of thing. As with education we don't need a federal program for every damned thing in life, just so our congressional representatives get to go "Me too!" at election time.

9 posted on 02/11/2005 10:54:00 AM PST by Darkwolf377 ("Of the four wars in my lifetime none came about because the U.S. was too strong."-Ronald Reagan)

$14 mil is a pittance anyway, so I guess that means we'll hear Bush being called a Nazi soon.

10 posted on 02/11/2005 10:54:04 AM PST by Darkwolf377 ("Of the four wars in my lifetime none came about because the U.S. was too strong."-Ronald Reagan)

Maybe we should go back and have President Carters Surgeon General teach these poor gay kids how to masturbate themselves instead of each other. Abstinence is the best and only real way to prevent unwanted pregnancies and Aids.

It's real simple.....Zip your file if you don't want to die. AIDS is a behavorial problem. (I'm not counting blood transfusions)

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