We Can Save A Child For Just $44

By William H. Frist
For the Journal-Constitution
Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Since swine flu grabbed the world's attention a month ago, 750,000 young children have died.

So you might wonder why nobody is talking about a pandemic of pneumonia or diarrhea -- the two biggest killers of these children.

One reason is that the word "pandemic" means worldwide epidemic.

In other words, there are more cases of a disease than normal, and they're occurring everywhere, even in the United States. Sadly, 25,000 children dying each day is "normal."

It's also widely unnoticed, because most of the young lives are lost in poor countries far away.

But most of these deaths are easily preventable. Why should we treat this as business as usual?

Through remarkably low-cost proven solutions and committed leadership, the United States can usher in an era where millions of mothers don't have to bury their babies within the first five years of life.

And we can accomplish the task with a smaller price tag than the well-spent money we've put toward the global fight against AIDS in the last several years.

What's grown to more than a $5 billion annual investment in the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief has brought life-saving treatment for and prevention of HIV to millions.

It's also brought us goodwill and a safer and more secure planet.

For just a fraction of that money, Congress can follow President Obama's cue and prevent many more needless deaths of mothers and their children, and the incalculable suffering these bring.

I congratulate the president not only for pledging to continue his predecessor's initiatives to fight AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis, but for envisioning a new comprehensive global health strategy focused on the key interventions that will safeguard the health of mothers, newborns and children.

Now the dollars to do something about it must follow. U.S.-funded programs strengthen and expand the delivery of a package of basic child health interventions that cost about $44 per year per child.

These interventions, delivered by local health workers in clinics and in communities, include immunizations, breast-feeding and newborn care counseling, and treatment for childhood killers like pneumonia, diarrhea and malaria.

What a legacy for our 44th President to establish -- $44 to provide preventative and curative care to children in impoverished lands.

These affordable interventions work. If we double the $495 million the United States currently spends in this area, we could reach more than 22 million children with care and save more than a million lives each year.

Our leadership could encourage other G8 nations to make significant contributions of their own.

But our government must first commit the resources to make all of this happen.

Even as we grapple with a financial crisis and economic downturn, polling shows that the American people favor foreign aid that saves children's lives.

I've witnessed how powerful our contributions can be.

Every year I go to Africa, where I've seen expanded access to health care save lives and spread peace and goodwill.

In Sudan, men from different sides of the conflict showed up at a school where I performed surgery.

In Nairobi, I met a mother who named her young daughter America because U.S.-funded HIV treatments gave the girl a future.

Just think what wiping out millions of child deaths could mean to parents and societies around the world.

Let's lend the name of America to a new legacy that redefines normal for child mortality worldwide.
Former GOP Senate Majority Leader William H. Frist, a physician, is the chairman of Save the Children's Survive to 5 campaign.

Fact Checking The "Stimulus" Spending Bill By John Boehner

May 27, 2009 | House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH) | Permalink

Today, the Administration is releasing yet another report on its trillion-dollar “stimulus” spending bill – one that Democrats claim will produce only half the jobs at twice the cost of the House GOP’s better stimulus solution. It’s been a full 100 days since the bill became law, and the Administration is pulling out all the stops to put a positive spin on the legislation, which has been increasingly panned by media and state and local officials as wasteful and inefficient – basically, anything but the “timely, targeted, and temporary” bill Washington Democrats promised earlier this year. As the Administration marks the 100th day of the “stimulus” spending bill, let’s take a closer look at some of the claims Democrats made about the legislation earlier this year – and how those claims stack 100 days later:

Claim: The President claimed that the stimulus “…will save or create 3 million to 4 million jobs over the next two years.” (Remarks by the President in Elkhart, Indiana, WhiteHouse.gov)

Fact Check: “State officials have complained about the difficulty of obtaining grants for construction projects, while economists question administration claims that the effort already has saved or created 150,000 jobs.” (Adriel Bettelheim, “Tinkerbell Effect, Part 3: Obama’s Job Creation Efforts,” CQ Politics, May 27, 2009) The Associated Press reported that: “The early trend seen in the AP analysis runs counter to expectations raised by Obama, that road and infrastructure money from the historic $787 billion stimulus plan would create jobs in areas most devastated by layoffs.” (Matt Apuzzo and Brett Blackledge, “Stimulus Watch: Jobs, But Not Where Needed Most,” Associated Press, May 11, 2009)

Claim: The President claimed that it would contain, “[n]ot a single pet project. Not a single earmark.” (Remarks by the President at his first press conference, WhiteHouse.gov)

Fact Check: The “stimulus” “contains dozens of narrowly defined programs that send money to specific areas or cater to special interests.” In fact, the “stimulus” contains “$50 million for habitat restoration and other water needs in the San Francisco Bay Area” and “$62 million for military projects in Guam.” (Michael Grabell and Christopher Weaver, “In stimulus bills, earmarks by any other name,” ProPublica, Feb. 5, 2009)

Claim: The President claimed that the stimulus “…contains an unprecedented level of transparency and accountability, so that every American will be able to go online and see where and how we’re spending every dime.” (Remarks by the President at his first press conference, WhiteHouse.gov)

Fact Check: “Although President Obama has vowed that citizens will be able to track ‘every dime’ of the $787 billion stimulus bill, a government website dedicated to the spending won’t have details on contracts and grants until October and may not be complete until next spring — halfway through the program, administration officials said.” (Matt Kelley, “Details thin on stimulus contracts,” USA Today, May 6, 2009)

Claim: The President pledged that “nearly 400,000 men and women will go to work rebuilding our crumbling roads and bridges.” (Remarks by the President, WhiteHouse.gov)

Fact Check: So far “a full 99.7 percent” of money allocated to the Transportation Department remains unspent, according to The Washington Post. Perhaps an aide to House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman James Oberstar (D-MN) said it best: “To some extent, I think the administration oversold the transportation aspect of this…It was sold as the heart and soul of the package, and it really just isn’t.” (Matt Apuzzo and Brett Blackledge, “Stimulus Watch: Jobs, But Not Where Needed Most,” Associated Press, May 11, 2009)

Claim: Then-Senator Obama promised that was he would, “not sign any non-emergency bill without giving the American public an opportunity to review and comment on the White House website for five days.” (Organizing For America, “Obama’s Stance on Ethics”)

Fact Check: Congress passed the stimulus bill on Friday, February 13; the President signed it in Denver on Tuesday, February 17 – less than the five day review period promised by the President. This troubling trend has continued throughout the year. Just last week, for example, the President waited only one day before signing the Defense Department weapons acquisition bill after Congress passed it and waited two after Congress passed the “Credit Cardholders Bill of Rights Act” before his signature made that bill law (Stephen Dinan, “Obama ducks promise to delay bill signings,” Washington Times, May 26, 2009); in fact, as of March, “Of the nine bills Mr. Obama has signed so far in his term, he has signed six of them less than five days after Congress sent them to him,” including the trillion-dollar “stimulus” bill. (Stephen Dinan, “Obama to sign lands bill before 5 days of comment,” Washington Times, March 30, 2009)

REPUBLICAN LEADER PRESS OFFICE
REP. JOHN BOEHNER (R-OH)
H-204, THE CAPITOL
(202) 225-4000 | GOPLEADER.GOV

Eric Cantor Reports on the First 100 Days of the Stimulus

"One hundred days after the President signed the ‘stimulus’ bill, we unfortunately continue to read about waste, delays, and job losses. These are not the results America hoped for."

WASHINGTON, D.C. - House Republican Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA) today issued the following statement after the Administration issued a “recovery report” on the $787 billion stimulus bill, one hundred days after the President signed it into law:

“One hundred days after the President signed the ‘stimulus’ bill, we unfortunately continue to read about waste, delays, and job losses. During the debate, well before the President signed the $787 billion spending bill, House Republicans made clear our belief that any stimulus action must be laser focused on jobs. In the hundred days since that misdirected bill was enacted, well over a million Americans have lost their jobs. These are not the results America hoped for.

“Even though the President himself promised to be tough on waste and just last week said that America is now ‘out of money,’ special interest projects inexplicitly are deemed worthy of taxpayer dollars. That is unacceptable, and it’s time for the majority in Congress to get serious about how tax dollars are being spent. Our priority must be on job protection, creation, and preservation.

“I hope that over the next one hundred days, Speaker Pelosi, Senator Reid, and the Democrat majorities in the House and Senate open their eyes to not just the misdirected, but reckless and unprecedented spending that has gone on under their watch."

Ed Freeman - Medal of Honor Winner

You're a 19 year old kid. You're critically wounded, and dying in the jungle in the Ia Drang Valley , 11-14-1965, LZ X-ray, Vietnam . Your infantry unit is outnumbered 8 - 1, and the enemy fire is so intense, from 100 or 200 yards away, that your own Infantry Commander has ordered the MediVac helicopters to stop coming in. You're lying there, listening to the enemy machine guns, and you know you're not getting out. Your family is 1/2 way around the world, 12,000 miles away, and you'll never see them again. As the world starts to fade in and out, you know this is the day.
Then, over the machine gun noise, you faintly hear that sound of a helicopter, and you look up to see an un-armed Huey, but it doesn't seem real, because no Medi-Vac markings are on it.
Ed Freeman is coming for you. He's not Medi-Vac, so it's not his job, but he's flying his Huey down into the machine gun fire, after the Medi-Vacs were ordered not to come.
He's coming anyway. And he drops it in, and sits there in the machine gun fire, as they load 2 or 3 of you on board.
Then he flies you up and out through the gunfire, to the Doctors and Nurses.
And, he kept coming back.... 13 more times..... And took about 30 of you and your buddies out, who would never have gotten out.



Medal of Honor Winner
Ed Freeman!