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H.R. 5501 - 04/09/2008

H.R. 5501, to which Rep. Harry Mitchell (D) voted "Yes", proposes $50 billion of your tax money to fund AIDS research worldwide. There are two questions here that need to be seriously considered. Should the federal government be spending your money on medical research? And if so, should it be directed at AIDS.

I'll answer those questions in reverse order. An interesting article was written comparing the money the federal government spends on AIDS versus other medical research, and found that funding for AIDS research far outpaces other diseases which are more catastrophic for Americans. For instance, heart disease is a leading killer in our country, and we spend $3,541 per death in research. Cancer receives a bit more funding at $7,713. On a largely disproportionate scale, AIDS kills far fewer Americans and is over-funded at $265.591 per death. The details can be found here. Clearly, if the government should be spending our tax dollars on medical research, a greater portion of it should be directed toward the diseases which most afflict Americans.

There are primarily three ways that an individual can benefit a cause such as this with their money. The first is to have the money taken from them by the government. The second is to donate to a charity that manages the research. The third is to give directly to the researchers. Barring the immoralities of the first method, whereby the taxpayer doesn't have any control over either the amount or the cause, which of these three methods is best?

When the government involves itself in "charity", about 30 cents on the dollar makes it to funding the actual cause, which represents a 70% overhead. Private charities tend to have an overhead averaging about 20%, and direct contributions to causes has very little overhead at all. Clearly, government involvement in this area is extremely wasteful.

I would urge Congressman Mitchell to reconsider his "Yes" vote on this bill. Not only should the federal government not be sending money to AIDS research at a huge disproportion to other diseases, but with its inherent waste, it shouldn't be involved in providing funding for medical research at all. Individuals should make the personal choice to fund a cause, and to what degree.