Hillary Holding Up AIDS Funding
Sen. Hillary Clinton is taking up where her husband left off. During President Bill Clinton’s term, he repeatedly “zeroed-out” AIDS funding his the Presidential Budget he sent up to Congress. You never heard much about it, because it was the post-1995 Republican-controlled Congress (mostly thanks to then Rep. Tom Coburn and Sen. Arlen Specter) that restored and increased funding each year.
Well, here’s what Hillary is up to now — threatening renewal of the Ryan White Act.
Sen. Clinton Delays AIDS Law’s Renewal, Citing Cut in NY Funds – Washington Post
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is holding up renewal of the primary federal law that battles HIV/AIDS, the 1990 Ryan White Act, causing a rift among activists on the subject and threatening approval of the legislation this year.
Clinton (D-N.Y.) said she opposes the measure because it would lower funding for her home state. But some AIDS groups also see broader political motives at work. Other states that would lose out include California, Florida and Illinois — all places Clinton would need to win if she seeks the presidency. Her critics also note that many of the states that would receive higher funding under the new formula are rural and Southern, which tend to vote Republican.
Now here’s what you won’t hear out of this story, but it is true. The “old formula” was designed when the scourge of AIDS disproportionally affected San Francisco and New York. But the “old formula” is subsidizing an infrastructure designed for people dying, not people living. The people living with HIV/AIDS are not growing in the Blue States, they are growing in the Red States.
The current law’s formula is based on the number of patients with AIDS; the new funding formula would, in effect, distribute funding based on the number of patients with HIV or AIDS.
Support for any particular formula “depends where you sit,” said Ernest Hopkins, director of federal affairs for the San Francisco AIDS Foundation. From his vantage, he said, the bill in the Senate “is a problem.”
Of course Mr. Hopkins, from San Francisco, gets paid from the Ryan White act under the current formula. How interesting….
The senator’s insistence on a different formula — one closer to current law — has angered several groups that represent AIDS and HIV patients who stand to get more money under the pending bill. Last week, Harry C. Alford, chief executive of the National Black Chamber of Commerce, wrote a letter to Clinton that said, “It is with sadness that I learn about your efforts to block” the law’s reauthorization.
Alford said that people of color, particularly in the South, are contracting AIDS at a rapid pace and need more funding than was envisioned when the current formula was devised. “I must share with you the bewilderment of African Americans throughout the country who cannot understand why you are taking this stand against opening the door to more equitable funding that will chiefly benefit people of color,” he wrote.
Clinton’s excuse: the Ryan White measure as drafted “would have a devastating impact on New York” and “unfairly shift millions of dollars in funding away from New York and other states that have been hardest hit by the epidemic, jeopardizing their ability to provide vital care and treatment services.” The key phrase is have been hardest hit.
If this were a Republican Senator, one might even accuse her of racist politics.
-Bruce (GayPatriot)
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A cynic might wonder how many billions of dollars are tied up in the AIDS industry, and who benefits economically from a disease that has been mostly behaviorally preventable since at least 1984?
Comment by V the K — August 24, 2006 @ 8:42 am - August 24, 2006
A further cynic might also wonder why AIDS activists in SF and NYC would, through their silence, hazard help for those in greater need elsewhere. Corruption in big cities isn’t just limited to govt –I guess it’s part of AIDS activism too.
If one can’t get a stable program in place with alternate local sustainable funding sources after 20+ years, should they even be in the business of AIDS advocacy and assistance?
Comment by Michigan-Matt — August 24, 2006 @ 11:00 am - August 24, 2006
One of the problems with this legislation is that it considers only SOME of the Ryan White funding. When all Ryan White funding is analyzed, that “gap” in Federal funding per patient is significantly less than is being claimed by the bill’s supporters.
Additionally, the Severity of Need Index (SONI) factors in state and local resources that have been committed to closing the gap between available Federal funding and existing service needs. The result of that formula will be the shifting of funding from states that supplemented Ryan White funding to states that have not made a similar commitment.
Full disclosure: I’m Director of Client Services for an ASO in upstate New York. V the K is certainly correct that, considering the magnitude of spending on AIDS services, we need to be looking at the amount of money that we’re spending and the effectiveness of the programs that it supports, particularly so-called prevention programs that don’t seem to be reaching the people that it needs to — though God knows that you’d think everyone would have gotten the message after 25 years of AIDS.
Comment by Rick Priebe — August 24, 2006 @ 11:17 am - August 24, 2006
Meanwhile President Bush has been sending millions of dollars to Africa to help combat Aids. Oops, New York isn’t in Africa, so that doesn’t count does it?
Politicians always look at the bottom line, at this point it is not the votes Hillary is looking for, it is donated dollars. Those dollars won’t be coming from the poor Black community, but they will be coming from all those beaurocrats who make their living in the vast Aids industry. If any of those people lose their jobs due to the new law, no donations to Hillary.
Comment by Leah — August 24, 2006 @ 12:19 pm - August 24, 2006
The reason Hillary wants to protect HIV/AIDS funding as it is now is simple; it’s in the perfect balance for what she needs.
She can claim at cocktail parties for white liberal gays how she protected their money.
She can claim at black church fundraisers that “those Republicans” just try to keep blacks down by not approving more funding for them amd reinforce their victimization and dependence on her.
This redistribution of funds based on where they’re actually needed neutralizes her on both sides — which is why she is fighting it so vehemently.
Comment by North Dallas Thirty — August 24, 2006 @ 12:21 pm - August 24, 2006
My. Homophobic and racist at the same time. This has just a bit more impact on peoples lives than macaca. Any question if any of the usual suspects will denounce this two for one bigotry? My guess is that it’s OK because somehow it’s Bush’s fault.
Comment by Bobo — August 24, 2006 @ 1:25 pm - August 24, 2006
I’m a liberal dem., and was always kinda neutral on hillary (never really liked or disliked her, even though I haven’t agreed with all of her views), until now. This REALLY PISSES me off. How DARE she hold up reauthorizing the Ryan White Care fund just because SHE thinks NY isn’t getting a big enough slice of the pie. WTF??! What self-serving b*&$!! Sorry, fellow libs, but I totally agree with this post and all the comments thus far berating hillary. Disagree?? Please, feel free to shed some light on why this is justified. Ironically, it was Bill who pushed for fully funding the RW program back in ’93. Politics DO make strange bedfellows.
Comment by ndtovent — August 24, 2006 @ 4:57 pm - August 24, 2006
#7 ndtovent – Be careful, your Liberal Dem card is about to be revoked.
Comment by BoBo — August 25, 2006 @ 12:36 am - August 25, 2006
BoBo,
I was thinking the same thing. And the GayLefties here will take away his GayCard, his VictimCard… they’ll issue a SelfLoathingCard in place of the others.
Comment by Michigan-Matt — August 25, 2006 @ 11:16 am - August 25, 2006
I am sick and tired of NYC and SF fags making dictates on the rest of us fags. They spent decades trying to trick the American people into thinking that AIDS was not a predominantly gay disease because that would be discrimination (denying the medical evidence that unprotected anal sex is the best way to transmit it). Now that the government wants to spend money in area where HIV infection is on the rise in minority communities and in the south, they bitch and moan because we are taking away metro-gays’ money.
Anyone know where the LCR is on this?
Comment by aaron — August 26, 2006 @ 11:39 am - August 26, 2006
#5 above has it right…Hillary is taking lesssons from her husband on this. New York is NOT the center of the universe and people are getting AIDS in rural southern states also. Why the RNC is not playing this up is beyond me but then again Republicans have always been poor on PR. Hillary is just plain wrong and the rest of the country needs to hear about it. If I did not frequent this site on a regular basis I would not have known this.
I used to serve on the Board of a major AIDS Help organization in Monroe Cty. Florida and we always were ready for changes in the distribution plan for Ryan White or funding cutbacks overall. It is amazing New York did not know…baloney. This is cheap politics at its worst and Hillary is in the middle of it.
Comment by Benj — August 26, 2006 @ 3:19 pm - August 26, 2006
I think you meant throwing millions of dollars down a sewer just to make people feel good.
Comment by rightwingprof — August 27, 2006 @ 10:41 am - August 27, 2006
#12 rightwingprof said:
“I think you meant throwing millions of dollars down a sewer just to make people feel good.”
That’s the rightwing spirit.
Why spend millions of dollars down a sewer just to make people feel good, when we can spend BILLIONS of dollars blowing a country to shit and making then feel miserable!?!
Good ol’ republican logic.
monty
Comment by monty — August 27, 2006 @ 2:00 pm - August 27, 2006
monty, I think you missed the point RWP was making, again. Why is it that the screeching voices on the Left need to be so shrill when truth rears its head?
It never fails —the voices on the GayLeft avoid logic, reason or rationality in their personal life, private conduct, in the public square of debate and the marketplace of ideas.
monty, you gotta get a new act.
Comment by Michigan-Matt — August 28, 2006 @ 9:41 am - August 28, 2006
Sorry, MM.
My sockpuppet is at the cleaners.
monty
Comment by monty — August 28, 2006 @ 12:01 pm - August 28, 2006
well, at least it’ll be a clean act when it gets unveiled. One sockpuppet per blog, though… ok? The GayLeft has the raj/Ian/blah sockpuppet; that’s enough for any blog, any where, any time.
Comment by Michigan-Matt — August 30, 2006 @ 8:41 am - August 30, 2006