Cowboys Against AIDS

Sebastian Mallaby of WaPo takes a three-years-later look at President Bush's promise to unilaterally massively increase funding for AIDS relief. At the time, it promised to be the first program to spend significant resources on treatment as well as prevention. His findings:

The administration's budget for 2007 requests $4 billion from Congress, more than quadruple the level in 2001. So the Bush team is on target to exceed the $15 billion promise...

the Bush administration began by refusing to buy pharmaceuticals that lacked approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, effectively closing the door to non-branded AIDS therapies. Starting in 2004, the administration fixed this problem... Given how often foreign aid is tied to exports from donor countries, it's remarkable that the Bush team stiffed Big Pharma in favor of cost-effective help for AIDS patients...

There's much more to be done -- 5 million more people get infected every year. But if you want to denounce rich countries for their negligence, the United States is the wrong target.

Of course, this is $4 billion more of deficit spending. But with all the worthless pork and dubious military, education and Medicare increases, this program is low on the list to be axed. Perhaps a better approach (or an additional approach) would be to make future increases contingent on willing contributions. Have the federal government give matching funding for taxpayer contributions. That would help citizens get involved in this most important kind of foreign aid, and it would enhance the public diplomacy aspect of the program.