Some things really irk me. Government spending is #1. Shortly following this is people who bite the hand that feeds them. The AP Wire has picked up a story regarding South Africans protesting because the US will not increase funding to combat Aids in THEIR country. From the article – “The protesters, clad in green T-shirts emblazoned with the words “HIV-Positive,” marched before the consulate in a wealthy northern suburb of Johannesburg to demand that the U.S. government increase its contribution to the Global Fund on AIDS, TB and Malaria….”
Currently the US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) has an annual operating budget of $6,800,000,000 – That’s a lot of cheddar. But where does it all go? I reviewed PEPFAR’s 6th annual report to congress, it’s a mind boggling 21 page report filled with statistics. As usual, I am just so upset about this I can’t form coherent sentence – list time!
The fine points about PEPFAR’s stats I just don’t get -
- 721,900 Chinese received HIV/AIDs testing and counseling services
- The fund treated 2,485,300 people world wide with Antiretroviral treatment.

PEPFAR Activities Worldwide
- According to the CDC “At the end of 2006, an estimated 1,106,400 persons (95% confidence interval 1,056,400-1,156,400) in the United States were living with HIV infection, with 21% undiagnosed
- The cumulative estimated number of diagnoses of AIDS through 2007 in the United States and dependent areas was 1,051,875″
- It seems parent to me, we could provide FREE treatment for HIV/AIDS to every diagnosed American Citizen for what we spend to treat people in other countries who do not pay taxes to us.
Let’s do a little math – What percentage of non-green card holding Americans actually have relatives in third world countries? Now compare that to the percentage of Americans which have children in school. I think it’s a safe bet that the latter is a significantly larger number. Finally, who does the US Government have more of a responsibility to watch over, it’s citizens with children in schools, or non tax paying citizens who are ruled by their own government.
As cruel as this may seem, I don’t see how AIDS in Africa, China or third world countries is our problem. I don’t plan to go have unprotected sex in Africa, I don’t plan to go get a blood transfusion over there. Why is MY government spending MY money in Africa?
PS – I hated using the analogy of Federal funding for schools, everyone who reads this knows that I believe the Federal Government just adds layers of bureaucracy to the public school system, and Jimmy Carter never should have started the Department of Education… but it’s all I could think of at 6am.