WP: Sen. Clinton Delays AIDS Law's Renewal, Citing Cut in N.Y. Funds

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/22/AR2006082201161.html

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is holding up renewal of the primary federal law that battles HIV/AIDS, the 1990 Ryan White Act, causing a rift among activists on the subject and threatening approval of the legislation this year.

Clinton (D-N.Y.) said she opposes the measure because it would lower funding for her home state. But some AIDS groups also see broader political motives at work. Other states that would lose out include California, Florida and Illinois -- all places Clinton would need to win if she seeks the presidency. Her critics also note that many of the states that would receive higher funding under the new formula are rural and southern, which tend to vote Republican.

Clinton was the sole vote against the Ryan White Act reauthorization bill that passed the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions in May. Ever since, she and other senators have been negotiating to find a consensus that would allow the measure to pass by acclamation before Congress's scheduled adjournment at the end of September. But a compromise has not been found.

"With a bipartisan bill like this, and with time limited, we want to have something that would go through without objection," said Michael Mahaffey, spokesman for the health committee. But, he added, Clinton "objects to the bill in the form passed out of committee

[yardwork]

1. Cutting HIV funding to NY, CA, FL, and IL is just plain stupid

We shouldn't be cutting HIV funding anywhere, and certainly not in the urban centers! This is just stupid, and typical of bushco. They're probably sending the funding to abstinence only programs in rural southern states. It just makes me sick.

[dsc]

3. states like mine get the short end of the stick

on this. North Carolina has a fairly substantial number of AIDS cases but doesn't get anything like the amount of funding it deserves. As a result my state is dead last when it comes to providing AIDS medication. Many rural southern areas, which are also highly African American, such as eastern NC have higher incidents of AIDS by percentage but get lower per person funding than places such as New York or Illinois. This isn't for abstinence only programs but for medications and the like.

[Orangepeel]

2. So, republicans don't want to go on record as voting FOR it?

why is it important that it pass by acclamation?

sidenote: regardless of whether or not one agrees with Clinton, this article has a really bullshit spin. It's not enought that she is against it because it is relatively bad for her state, it has to be because she has presidential ambitions? Lots of Senators do shit that hurts the rest of the country but helps their own. That's the whole concept of pork.

[beyurslf]

4. On one hand the large cities in those states probably have the highest

numbmers of AIDS cases. On the other, they probably also have programs at the state or local level of their own. Many rural areas may have little or no funding. It's a no-win I would say unless they are willing to increase everyone's funding.