THE DEMOCRATS' "100-hour" legislative agenda and the Bush administration's "New Way Forward" plan sadly ignore what should be a major component of American foreign policy: global poverty reduction. Even worse, while the Democrats assert their control of Congress, they are in danger of denying funding to one of the few programs from the Republican era that is worth salvaging. Unless the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) is granted an exception from the continuing resolution up for renewal in February, almost one billion dollars in aid will be lost.
The continuing resolution is an attempt to postpone lengthy budget debates until later in the year. In the last few days of the Republican-controlled Congress (words that make me very happy), intense debate over the next year's budget came to a stalemate. Congress decided to simply continue spending at the 2006 levels. That decision could be extended when it expires in February. The Democrats want to avoid a lengthy debate and focus on their own agenda. The Democrats would probably oppose most of the programs that received increased funding in 2007 from the last Congress, anyway, so it makes sense for them to ignore the budget and pass agenda items that will bring about real change.
The danger, of course, lies in throwing out any budget increases, like PEPFAR, that need to be implemented immediately. President Bush announced PEPFAR in 2003 as a commitment to spend 15 billion dollars fighting AIDS. Funding for the program was supposed to increase in 2007. For poverty-fighting organizations, PEPFAR was a welcome surprise from a normally tight-fisted administration. The program certainly has its problems, and it is not enough to turn the tide in the fight against extreme poverty. Still, the increased funding must be preserved -- not only for its immediate effects but also for the tone it sets for future aid.
If for no other reason, the money should be spent because it will save lives. According toONE: The Campaign to Make Poverty History, an anti-poverty advocacy group, losing the additional $900 million will mean that as many as 350,000 people will not receive treatment for HIV/AIDS. Initiatives directed against malaria and tuberculosis will also lack adequate funding, resulting in even more people being denied prevention and treatment for these deadly diseases. Absent this funding, real people will unnecessarily die. If American lives were at stake, Congress would not hesitate to act.
The effects of AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis are not just sickness or death. These diseases also remove a large portion of the workforce in the poor countries where they are most rampant. The resulting decline in productivity can be crippling for an economy, leading some economists (like Columbia's Jeffrey Sachs) to identify high rates of these diseases as a crucial obstacle to economic prosperity for the developing world. Coupled with targeted, effective development assistance, health programs like PEPFAR are crucial to narrowing the gap between rich and poor nations.
Symbolically, an increase in aid for developing nations sends a message that the United States will fulfill its commitments to much higher spending on foreign aid. According to Sachs, the United States would need to spend over $50 billion dollars more in order to reach its commitment of 0.7 percent of GDP in development assistance -- a goal over 60 percent of Americans support. Removing or delaying the additional funding for PEPFAR would be a step backwards at a time when great strides forward are desperately needed. The U.N.'s Millennium Development Goals, which aim to begin to decrease the spread of AIDS and malaria by 2015 and to which the United States has declared its commitment, is still within reach but not without a legitimate effort and substantial increases in funding.
To fail to meet the Millennium Development Goals would be a tragedy in a number of ways. Firstly, it would constitute a betrayal of the billions of people living in developing nations to whom we have pledged our help. It would be a thoroughly disappointing abandonment of the hopes that humanity could make desperately needed changes in the next millennium. The countries where poverty is widespread will continue to be security threats to the developed nations that they justifiably see as the source of their economic woes. Perhaps most importantly -- certainly most immediately -- a failure to increase spending on poverty-related programs like PEPFAR would make thousands of avoidable deaths inevitable. Unlike federal spending on a new highway or a better fighter jet, live-saving aid efforts cannot simply wait for the next fiscal year.
Daniel Colbert's column usually appears Thursdays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at dcolbert@cavalierdaily.com.
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