Posted on 04/05/2008 7:03:24 AM PDT by shrinkermd
President Bush is going partway toward atoning for his sins in the Middle East by rebuilding Africa. His leadership in fighting disease and poverty on the continent culminated Wednesday with a breathtaking gesture from the House of Representatives, which took the president's generous proposal to spend $30 billion over five years fighting AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis around the world and upped it by $20 billion.
The $50-billion reauthorization for the president's anti-disease program, which is also expected to pass in the Senate, marks a dramatic shift in the United States' attitude toward foreign aid. This country has supported big international disease-eradication projects in the past, notably when it led a World Health Organization crusade against malaria in the late 1950s, but never with such an enormous financial commitment. We'd like to think this reflects a realization that saving lives and rebuilding economies destroyed by disease is a better way to enhance global security and stability than dropping bombs on people.
The bill does come with a few flaws. The most controversial aspect of the president's program when it was launched in 2003 was a requirement that 33% of the money for AIDS prevention had to be spent on abstinence-only programs, a bone tossed out to win the support of the religious right. The House bill scraps that requirement, only to replace it with a rule that may be nearly as bad. Now, if a program spends less than half of its budget for preventing sexual transmission on abstinence efforts, it has to send a report to Congress justifying the decision. That could have a chilling effect on programs that would rather spend the money on condoms but don't want to risk having their funds cut off by conservative lawmakers.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Totally missed is the question whether this a proper function of government and how this large sum is justified.
Essentially, they don't render a judgment about the foreign aid effort at all but they do opine on the Iraq War, POTUS and so forth.
Let’s see to stop AIDS, no more gay sex.
To Stop Malaria, make DDT again.
To stop TB, there are drugs for that, and that wouldn’t be THAT expensive, if you do numbers one and two first.
Be nice if we could use some of that money to keep drug resistant TB from walking in across our southern border. Money would go a long way towards some kind of a barrier. Very expensive to treat once it gets here and it has.
The U,S, government invented AIDS to kill black people and is now having a guilty concience and will pay to eradicate it.
Not to mention the eradication of smallpox, which acually succeeded. Reporters must take lessons to display such mindnumbing stupidity.
The self-righteousnees of the libs never ceases to amaze. The LAT assumes that their editorial opinion is worth more than, say, the opinion of Terry at ‘Terry’s Towing’ who fixes my cars.
Actually, it will not be nearly enough! By the time the UN, other worldwide programs and the leaders (dictators) of the various countries skim the aid, there will not be much left to get to the people who need help.
vaudine
You may also want to watch the following videos, very eye-opening:
I just watched the first one again—excellent!
http://www.immunity.org.uk/videos.html
I don't think people like that are going to accept any help from the Evil U.S. who invented AIDS to kill them. (Thank You Rev. Wright)
This figures out as $166 from every man, woman, and child in America.
It’s a waste. Unless those people stop acting like Bonobos AIDS will just increase.
To boot, these brain dead morons are making fuel out of food, at significantly higher costs than oil!
Yet this is rarely mentioned. I say buy Gold, or even better, Oil as that has some real economic value as opposed to Gold. Wouldn't ignore food commodities either.
I bought oil 20 yrs ago. LOTS of oil. They are getting ready to drill on my property!
More foreign aid for AIDS...like pissing in the ocean.....
this will NEVER end!!!!
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