This week President Obama released a summary for his proposed federal budget for the 2010 fiscal year. In that summary he has announced an unspecified increase in the dollars allotted for HIV prevention and intervention. The total proposed budget is set for $3.6 trillion and the specific amount that will go toward the HIV fight has not been outlined. More details are to be released in April.I've been involved in the fight against HIV for about a decade and I've witnessed the decline in services many AIDS Service Organizations are experiencing because the funding has slowly been trickling away. Not only have we seen a decline in dollars, we've also had an increase on the paremeters the dollars available can be used on. The Bush administration did a phenomenal job in dictating unrealistic methods on how monies could be used (I mean really - abstinance only teaching as a means of HIV prevention does not effectively tackle the problem).
It's exciting to hear that the Obama administration is already making plans to increase spending. I was always optimistic that Barack would do the right thing should he be elected into the White House. I think the pendulum is now swinging in the right direction. I'm looking forward to hearing exactly what will be contained in the April release as more details are revealed.
2 comments:
hey hon -- didja hear about tavis smiley once again utterly overlooking AIDs at his bash?
Gotta wonder at times.
Tavis overlooked HIV which is affecting our entire population and he togally ignored the LGBT community like we don't exist. If he's going to call his program The State of Black America, should he be inclusive of all of Black America? And with the way HIV is devastating us - how can he not address it's impact on the African-American community? Not sure what Tavis is thinking.
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