HIV AIDS Budget Africa

A budget-slashing effort in Congress this year threatens to bring down funding for HIV and AIDS prevention in Africa. In fact, much of the long-term progress being made could suddenly come to a catastrophic halt.

Michael Gerson, a conservative columnist with the Washington Post and a force behind an HBO special called The Lazarus Effect, is fighting hard to hold on to the funding that started with his boss, nearly a decade ago.

In 2003, President George W. Bush started the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR — an unprecedented, $3-billion a year program to help the world fight AIDS and has resulted in an 80-fold increase in the number of Africans receiving life-saving AIDS treatments since the program began.

In 2008, Bush led the charge for renewal and expansion. “We can bring healing and hope to many more. So I ask you to maintain the principles that have changed behavior and made this program a success,” Bush told Congress in his State of the Union address that year. “And I call on you to double our initial commitment to fighting HIV/AIDS by approving an additional $30 billion over the next five years.”

But division — and subtraction — are precisely what supporters of PEPFAR now fear. The program has steadily grown into a hefty $50-billion project and as Congress wrestles with the debt limit and trillion dollar budget worries, foreign aid is under sharp fire. GPS: 4 ways to save $2 billion while improving U.S. foreign aid.