Posted on 04/02/2008 7:48:26 PM PDT by kiriath_jearim
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The House of Representatives on Wednesday passed a bill to more than triple spending to fight AIDS in Africa and other parts of the world, one of President George W. Bush's foremost foreign aid quests.
The measure, a bipartisan compromise backed by the White House and passed by a vote of 308 to 116, calls for $50 billion in funding for AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria programs over the next five years. It marks a big hike from the $15 billion authorized over the first five years of the initiative.
Bush had initially proposed doubling the program to $30 billion. The Democratic-led House boosted it to $50 billion.
A similar bill is heading toward passage in the Democratic-led Senate.
The initiative aims to prevent infection by the human immunodeficiency virus, which causes AIDS, treat people already infected and care for children left as orphans by AIDS.
"There is a moral imperative to combat this epidemic," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat.
The White House said the current program is supporting life-saving treatment for 1.45 million people.
The program launched by Bush in 2003 provides support programs and drugs in 15 countries, 12 in Africa plus Vietnam, Guyana and Haiti. The new bill would add 14 more countries in the Caribbean basin, and an amendment approved by the House would add three more African countries.
Bill opponents said it was simply too expensive, and that there were pressing needs at home that need to be addressed.
The bill would discard a current requirement criticized by some Democrats and AIDS activists that a third of all HIV prevention funds be spent on sexual abstinence education. It instead calls for "balanced funding" for abstinence, fidelity and condom programs.
There are 33 million people worldwide infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, with two-thirds of them in sub-Saharan Africa, according to U.N. estimates.
Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Florida Republican, said the bill would save millions of lives around the world and help maintain stability in a key region of the world.
"The program that we are authorizing today ... is now recognized as perhaps the most successful foreign assistance program of the United States of America since the Marshall Plan," Ros-Lehtinen said, referring to the costly U.S. plan to rebuild Europe after World War II.
Bush sees his efforts against AIDS and malaria as foreign policy successes in a presidency dominated by the unpopular war in Iraq. During a trip to Africa in February, Bush was given a hero's welcome in part for U.S. AIDS and malaria programs.
The White House calls the anti-AIDS initiative the largest commitment ever by any nation for an international health initiative dedicated to a single disease.
New Jersey Democratic Rep. Donald Payne said the initiative will go down as Bush's single most important achievement.
But opponents said it costs too much. "It is terrible that millions of Africans are suffering AIDS. But we cannot afford such totally irrational generosity. This is benevolence gone wild," said California Republican Rep. Dana Rohrabacher.
"We can't take care of our own veterans when they come home from the war. We can't take care of our elderly. We have people who can't take care of their own health needs and are at risk of losing their homes," Rohrabacher added. "We have big hearts. But we need to use our brains."
Our tax money at work ....
And where are they going to get the money? And who gave them the right to send our tax money to Africa? I sure as hell didn’t and I don’t know anyone that did.
worth repeating.
Why are we doing this? Since when did the federal government become Uncle Sugar to the rest of the world? We’re giving money that we apparently don’t have to other nations?
Pelosi will then be the first to rip Bush for out of control spending.
I think it’s time to start over. We gotta get all the people who understand the constitution in one place and leave all the rest of the people expecting government handouts to starve and we’ll just start over. Anyone who looks at government as the vehicle for charity will be tarred and feathered the first time, and the second time, hung. We will make sure that the government encourages personal charity and that people are aware of the proper avenues of charity, such as the church, private charity groups, and personal giving.
And the Africans should use theirs. Stick with one partner. Don’t go in dark places alone at night because that’s when rapists are most active. Use condoms (Assuming you’re having sex with one partner) at all times until you have tested negative for HIV twice in a 6 month span. Those 3 rules will cause a huge dent in the spread of HIV. You don’t need billions of dollars to tell people that simple message.
We need drug testing for Congress. There is obiously something in the water in D.C. that makes them loose their minds. How about puttting that 50 billion toward saving SS or medicare for US citizens?
We may be members of the "Global" community, but we are not THE "Global Community!
Thats right all you DC swine....pillage and extort more funds from the American people so Bono can congratulate all you high and mighty magistrates in DC. More billions wont stop AIDS and how much gets siphoned off by the corrupt African regimes? I puke on our so-called leaders who can neither control spending or sexual urges.
I hear they still can’t fine $1B to provide border security.
Wonderful. We can just borrow/print more money to give away to African warlords. After all the waste, fraud and abuse, what, maybe about 10% of the money actually goes to help someone?
Bush and the congress will have added 4.5 to 5 trillion dollars to the national debt by the time he leaves office. What’s another 50 billion?
“And who gave them the right to send our tax money to Africa?”
Little of that money is going to “Africa.”
It’s going to Big Pharma right here in the USA.
You mean the international banking community didn’t get it all?!?
$50 Billion works out to roughly $150 for every man, woman and child legally in the United States. Given that there are a lot of illegals, the burden on legal inhabitants of the U.S. is even higher.
If you’re a straight person who doesn’t use risky intravenous illegal drugs, just smile and wave at the nearest homeless person and tell them they’re welcome to your money.
Build the damn fence, on the Mexican border! Screw AIDS donations and Egypts fence!
Can someone please post the voting record or the HR Number for this bill. Thanks
How does this benefit U.S. citizens? I cannot think of one way.
Selfish...yah, maybe.
When will we decide, all of us, to stop electing give-away artists and elect somebody that has worked for a living and can identify with the paycheck once a week and small businessman population?
Throwing money at AIDS, is like bailing a sinking ship with a teaspoon. It doesn't work. And as long as contracting AIDS is treated like a civil right, that won't change. To stop AIDS, you MUST stop the behavior that causes it. Diseases do not real laws, they do not know a civil right from an abomination. And the disproportionate amount of money thrown at it is criminal!
I found info here and also sent off remarks to my rep., Knollneberg in Michigan.
Thanks! I’ll call my RINO Rep in the AM!
we can’t afford to take care of people in our own country.
Why don’t we skip the middleman and deposit directly into a Swiss bank account?
The President has explained that this is a national security issue. That’s the way most Western governments see it.
That's stretching "national security" quite a bit. I can see the same reasoning used to make poverty, global warming, or human rights abuses into "national security" issues.
It's a very convenient way to mask inappropriate government involvement.
If everybody is dead or dying its easy to set up new terrorist states. That's how I understand it.
Right, just like if everyone is poor, or oppressed, or clamoring for resources depleted by "rampant capitalism", or dispossessed of land due to global warming, etc.
I understand the argument. I just think it's bogus. Dangerous even. The government has a lot of power and a lot of discretion when it comes to national security, so it's not a good idea to define national security so broadly that it covers everything under the sun.
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