In early February during the week of National Black HIV/AIDS
Awareness Day, President Bush put forth a budget request for fiscal year
2008 that largely under funds the Ryan White CARE Act and other critical
domestic HIV/AIDS priorities.
The president's budget request proposes largely flat-funding the Ryan
White CARE Act over the funding levels included in the continuing
resolution for fiscal year 2007 that was put forth by the new
fair-minded Leadership and approved by the House last week. The
president's proposal did contain a small, but insufficient, increase of
$25 million for the AIDS Drug Assistance Program while keeping most of
the CARE Act at level funding.
"Barely two months after the president signed a bill to reauthorize the
Ryan White CARE Act, his new budget request short-changes this vital
program," said Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese. "The
president has paid much rhetoric to the problem of HIV/AIDS among
minority communities in the United States. It's time for the president
to put his money where his mouth is and request funding for domestic
HIV/AIDS programs that keeps pace with the real need."
The president's request also included an increase of $28 million for
unproven abstinence-only-until-marriage programs that discriminate
against gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender youth and fail to give
young people the information and resources to protect themselves from
HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases.
"It is unconscionable that in the same week that the nation commemorates
the HIV/AIDS crisis in the African-American community, President Bush
puts forth a budget that fails to meet the challenges posed by today's
epidemic," Solmonese continued. "With the Centers for Disease Control
reporting that 46 percent of African-American men who have sex with men
in five major U.S. cities are already HIV-positive, it is simply
unacceptable that the president can find more money for anti-gay
abstinence-until-marriage programs and neglect so many other domestic
HIV/AIDS priorities."
National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day is observed on Feb. 7. According
to the Kaiser Family Foundation, of the 1.2 million Americans living
with HIV/AIDS, approximately 500,000 are African-American. Furthermore,
only 14 percent of African-Americans living with HIV/AIDS have access to
private health insurance while 59 percent rely on Medicaid and 22
percent are uninsured.
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