A decades-old program created by President George W. Bush to combat AIDS around the world is at risk of being sucked into a partisan dispute
The most impactful AIDS relief program in history and, by far, the biggest positive accomplishment of George W. Bush's Presidency -- a program that has flat-out helped millions of people around the world and literally saved TENS OF MILLIONS of lives -- and certain members of the GOP want to torpedo it because of American religious extremists determined to impose their puritanical social views wherever possible. This was George W. Bush's program! He wasn't conservative enough for many of today's Republicans. We used to laugh at Bush's idea of "compassionate conservatism", but I sure wish there were more of them around today.
Why can't an effective, efficient, obviously good relief program that genuinely helps people who otherwise would fucking DIE be something that doesn't fall victim to American partisan politics? At this point, PEPFAR is one of those few foreign aid programs that should be rubber-stamped without serious debate because it WORKS. There isn't a politician who supposedly cares about human beings who should even consider holding up a program like PEPFAR. We have decades of results that clearly reveal how much PEPFAR has helped people, and there are now American politicians that were voted into office by people who you know and probably even love who want to kill it. Stories like this make me so ashamed of vast numbers of people in this country -- not just the political leaders but the Americans who voted them into office and keep them there -- and it just seems to get worse and less hopeful and more mean. It's not like I don't recognize what our country has turned into in the past 7-8 years, but sometimes I am still stunned at the how far we have fallen.
