Photo by bullneckNotice those posters around town that say “AIDS is DC’s Katrina”? Maybe they ought to say that Obama’s AIDS policy is Bush’s AIDS policy.
The poster features a concerned (discombobulated?) President George W. Bush staring from his window seat down at the landscape below. Presumably he’s looking down at Hurricane Katrina, as far away from the devastation as his federal prevention efforts were from useful. The message of the poster is that President Obama runs the risk of doing nothing as a terrible disaster befalls the people who share a city with him.
President Obama has done a little worse than nothing to prevent the AIDS epidemic in the District. In May of this year, Obama put out a budget that continued the ban on using federal funding for needle-exchange programs. This, despite a campaign promise to overturn the ban, and notwithstanding the good sense and science behind the program.
At the time, White House spokesman Ben LaBolt said that Obama did not approve of the use of the budget process “to litigate divisive issues and score political points.” Fair enough, though it’d be a hell of a lot easier to get clean needles and prevent HIV if he did.
AIDS czar Jeff Crowley assured Time and Obama’s critics that the President was playing the long game: “The President is looking forward to working with Congress and the American people to build support for this change, and his Administration is committed to moving forward to address the federal ban on syringe exchange programs as a part of a national HIV/AIDS strategy.”
