« Guidelines for Expanded Testing | Main | Ryan White Redux »
May 30, 2007
PEPFAR Redux
In a Rose Garden press conference, President Bush has announced he'd ask Congress to "double" the budget for his global AIDS plan over the next five years. That would be $30 billion from 2008 to 2013. But if you're keeping track at home, you've noticed that PEPFAR won't be reauthorized until next year. And since budgets are made on an annual basis, it's hard to make sense of a request of $30 billion over five years, just as it was hard to make sense of his original $15 billion request for PEPFAR's first five years. (Congress will have provided about $18 billion.)
Bush, of course, will be out of office in 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013, and presumably he won't be hanging around lobbying Congress come budget season in each of those years. Also, he didn't say where Congress should come up with the money. And as with any budget request, Congress could ignore Bush and chart their own course.
So why the press conference? The Washington Post says: "But administration officials said he wants to make the announcement in advance of next week's [G8] summit, during which Bush is likely to take criticism for his administration's positions on climate change. Also, [Robert] Zoellick's appointment is expected to stir opposition among nations weary of U.S. leadership of the World Bank." As John Donnelly puts it: Bush is looking at his legacy.
Many AIDS groups criticized the request as being too paltry to keep up with the spread of HIV. The New York Times says: "Administration officials concede that point and say the White House is hoping Mr. Bush's announcement will prod other Group of 8 countries, as well as nations that have growing economies, to make spending commitments of their own." Perhaps this will be one of PEPFAR's lasting effects, to normalize high spending on HIV overseas.
It's worth noting that you can't go from zero to 60 instantaneously. Even if money suddenly became available to pay for every request under the sun, countries couldn't absorb it or spend it efficiently.
Posted by Adam Graham-Silverman at May 30, 2007 04:18 PM