Bush Cuts Funding…Again

Phoebe Connelly

The Bush administration has done it again--this is three years in a row that he has invoked the "Kemp-Kasten" amendment to cut U.S. funding to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) after Congress has approved it. He has done so, again, despite the recommendation his own panel of experts, who went to China to investigate some of the most controversial work of the fund --and found it blameless. UNFPA's press release on the subject puts it best: "The United States is the only country to deny funding to UNFPA for non-budgetary reasons." I've written once before on the noteworthy efforts of Jane Roberts and 34 Million Friends to replace the funding. Regardless, it is frustrating that what was started as a one-time campaign has become a perpetual stand against an administration that is so willing to overlook the needs of women.

Phoebe Connelly, a former managing editor at In These Times, is Web Editor at The American Prospect.
The text is from the poem “QUADRENNIAL” by Golden, reprinted with permission. It was first published in the Poetry Project. Inside front cover photo by Golden.
Get 10 issues for $19.95

Subscribe to the print magazine.